I say,
These days are crazed;
hectic, perhaps, but OK –
we still find time to sit back and think
and find our place here among this virtual space
with words and thoughts and ideas
and the satisfaction of the act of connections
through collectively shared reflections.
Bacteria, viruses, rockets, and rocks.
6th graders still challenged by lockers with locks.
Two student teachers and some nurses to boot.
The best rocket maker might win some loot.
Friday detention is a bit of a pain.
This poem is confusing, let me explain.
It’s my week in a poem, the life of a science teacher.
I’m armed only with my cunning, a computer, and a beaker.
Anne M. came back from behind the Great Firewall of Asia.
Being lost without my blog
In China where it would not log
Then again when back home on the farm
Due a quirk, I felt I’d lost my arm.
Sheryl provides us with a rush of words in her freestyle poem, which she says is “prompted by needs for teacher literacy in technology”:
21st Century is no time to be a wallflower as the dance moves on without you.
Ken continues his wonderful stylistic writing that captures more than a moment:
Fleet stepping figures in oilskin array,
scattered reflections a constant foray,
city street buskers with rhapsodic song -
happy together -
the lyrical chorus delighting the throng,
mocking the weather.
sara (she of the lower case world) mulls over love:
he brought me
a cheesy bagel today
at my second job
at the plant place.
wrapped in a paper towel,
with two string cheeses
on the side.
“you need a snack,”
he smiled.
the mums do their mumming,
the late-summer bees gather pollen,
i count the days of marriage
in the crumbs.
and it’s like the stars.
but better.
I’m hoping Liza made it through, even though a new week now begins:
I think that I will survive this week
Abundant with colds and meetings and chaos
I think that I will survive this week
Where life and work cross swords with one another
I think that I will survive this week
With stinky skunks and dirty hands on kids
I think that I will survive this week
but can I survive the weekend?
Gail P., who gave me the idea of last week’s Day in a Question (and then her question got lost in transit somehow), captures so nicely the richness of her teaching environment and philosophy:
The natives are restless.
They’re eager to go.
They’ve found the right path
But what they don’t know
Is what lies before them,
Around every last turn,
Are the carefully laid challenges
That bring them to learn.
Like Liza, David was looking forward to the weekend. Perhaps the sniffles are gone?
Snuffles and coughing, but deadlines to meet
Still, dogs to walk and children to feed
Poems and blog posts, but
Still, deadlines to meet
Thankfully, in sight: the end of the week
And Lisa C. added her poem called Late September to her blog site, capturing a hectic week.
The week started off without a hitch
We learned how to start stories,
Worked out more than one glitch
We worked on a project, or maybe two,
Finished a couple
And started a few that are new.
A novel was finished, all in one day!
The weekend was coming
With more time to play.
One last thing, before we go
We ended our week
By honoring a hero.
I sigh with relief
Now that it is over
And start make plans for another great week!
Yesterday, in hopes that it would draw my sixth grade students’ attention to the first presidential debate, we did some work around thinking about the elections. Our school will be doing a Mock Election for the first time (ever?) and I am determined to provide my students with enough information to not only make a good choice but also to filter out the influence of parents, teachers and others (yeah — this is going to be tough).
I started out the lesson with this great video from Common Craft and we talked about the complicated voting system in this country and why that is important (and the day before, we chatted about the balance of power among the branches of government).
Then, I had them brainstorm issues that they consider important and hope to be addressed in the campaign. Our list included:
Global Warming
Protecting Animal Habitats
The War in Iraq
Fuel Prices
Offshore Drilling
Health Care
The Economy
Next, my students did some stick figure drawing for a comic strip in which they, as a comic character, ask a question of the candidates. We then moved onto the computers and headed off to Make Beliefs Comics, which is an easy and isolated comic strip making site. They loved it! The comic site is limited in scope, but you can email the link to the comic and I intended to take all of the comics and use Google Sites to create a little website of their comics.
Here is my example:
BUT — the Make Beliefs site has something strange going on with scripts (I emailed the creator, Bill, and he is working on it — he is very responsive). So my web idea will have to wait and I hope they get it all resolved out very soon.
The themes for Day in a Sentence continue, with this week focusing on poetry. (I know it’s not April and that is the point — poetry should be enjoyed in all forms all times of the year). I ask you to consider reflecting on a day of your week in the form of a poem. It could be a couplet, a haiku, a freeverse or any style of poem that suits your fancy.
Just add to the comment section of this post and I will collect and publish over the weekend.
I look forward to the rhythm (and maybe rhyme) of your words.
So, today, my webcomic — Boolean Squared — got published on the website of the big regional newspaper and my venture into the world of creating comics is official. The newpaper (The Springfield Republican) also printed a short story in its paper version about the launch of the comic, so we’ll see where things go and how they develop.
I decided to take all of the many submissions for this week’s Day in a Sentence (actually, it became Day in a Question with the theme), and use a site called Jog the Web, which allows you to set up a series of navigational paths for websites. I like that I can move you to the blogs and sites of all of the folks who added their words to our feature this week.
So, without further ado, please tie the laces on your shoes and let’s hit the trail.
I love the fertile imagination of my students. Give them a push and they leap forward. I presented them with a prompt in which they had to create a Vehicle of the Future that would run on something other than fossil fuels. This led to an interesting talk about the Earth’s resources and innovation.
Then, they got to work, using informational text/expository writing to label and explain their vehicles. I took their images and went into Animoto and … came up with this. I showed it to my students today and they were enthralled with it (and a few who had not yet finished their vehicles are now inspired to complete it soon before I do a revision of the video).
See what you think:
Peace (in green beans — which was my vehicle),
Kevin
This suggestion comes from Gail P., who teaches at my school. She came into the lunch room and said, Why not Day in a Sentence as an interrogative?
Well, why not, indeed? We haven’t done that one before, so: Please reflect on a day in your week or your week, and narrow it down to a provocative question or query for us.
Then, use the comment feature on this post to add your question and I will gather them up and publish over the weekend. (Thanks, Gail!)
Here is mine:
Will this push into Professional Learning Communities will make our school more collaborative in nature or will it just tighten the circles around our grade level teams?
I look forward to your words and invite everyone and anyone to come on board with this collaborative, community project.
I just found out that the big regional newspaper will be running my comic — Boolean Squared — as a webcomic on its site. More info to come later on all that as I talk it through with them, but I am pretty excited to be on the path to becoming a published comic strip creator. Neat.
And I decided to keep the name, Boolean Squared, as the title of the comic. Thank to everyone who took my little poll (there was even the kind suggestion of renaming it The Adventures of Binary Boy, which is quite catchy, I admit). Here are the survey results:
(note: there were sixteen responses and the numbers here reflect percentages, not raw numbers. Not sure why that didn’t come out in my graph.)
And, some of you also suggested some ideas for my characters. Here are a few:
the school bought a new copier but didn’t have an electrical outlet to plug it into;
something about adults not knowing how facebook or myspace work;
some digital-age variations on “the dog ate my homework”;
teachers having a life outside of school;
dress down Fridays;
server down or computer overheating;
shared laptops;
reading buddies showing alter egos of older kids;
something about how a language teacher ends up stumping his class on a book report because he assigns a book SO OLD that there is NO reference to it digitally. So when the kids try to find a summary or anything, they can’t because the book is pre-digital age and is now out of print.
and a few others.
Thanks for the ideas. Some of them mirror my own and comics that I have already created (I have a year’s worth already done at this point).
As much as possible, I try to write with my students, and share out what I am doing — talking through my writing process and asking them for feedback. This week, we brainstormed a long list of possible short story titles that we will draw upon in the weeks ahead for writing prompts. It was quite a creative adventure and the list has already provided some nice inspiration for students.
Here are a few:
The Day Cows Drove Cars
My Homework Ate My Dog
Personalities
Never Put 200 Pounds of Salt in Your Locker
A Demon Named MCAS
The Greatest Robot Ever
Magic Window
CRASH: A Journey into the TV
Alien Friend, Where Are You?
I Wish I Could …
Holy Monkey Muffins
Lord of the Springs
(The MCAS one is funny. The MCAS is our state test.)
Meanwhile, I took one of their titles and wrote this story over four periods of writing classes during one day (I teach four sessions). The title was one of my student’s ideas and it just intrigued me.
The Eye in the Hourglass
Who knew the genie would be so cruel? And would bring such bad luck? Surely, three wishes would change my life for the better. But, it turned out that I found a bad genie, a wicked genie, and he twisted my words around like a tornado until the meaning of what I really wanted disappeared into a storm of unfortunate events. My first two wishes should have given me some clues. First, I asked for a bag of gold. What he gave me was bag of stones, with one flint of gold at the bottom.
“It has gold, does it not?” the genie sneered.
My second wish was for a new house. I was thinking of the shack where my father and sisters lived. A new home would be a perfect for my family — a chance to start anew. So what did the genie provide? What was the answer to my wish? A house that fit in the palm of hand. No bigger than a pencil, really.
“Very nice structure,” the genie laughed as I gasped in astonishment.
I should have quit there, but I didn’t.
Instead, I wished for the one thing I always wished I could control: time. I wanted to be able to stop the hands of time and hold off the disease that was raging through my father’s bones. I wanted to hold back time so that I could find a cure for him.
“Done,” said the genie, and before I knew it, he had blinked his eyes, muttered a few words and — boom — I found myself trapped inside some glass compartment. It was curved, with the top being wide and the lower end being narrow. A hole was right in the middle of the floor and there was sand all around me, pouring past me, down the hole into a chamber below me. I realized with a gasp that I was inside an hourglass. I looked up at the genie, who was done with my wishes now. His huge eyeball was pressed near the hourglass, making me feel tiny and powerless.
“So, boy, stop time,” he thundered.
“What?” I asked, confused. “Get me out of here!”
“Oh no. I can’t do that. This is your wish, come true, boy. Stop time. Put your foot in that hole and hold back the Sands of Time. All of time will come to a halt if the sand stops. Your wish has been granted.”
The genie started to laugh again. I stared down at the hold, watching the sand drop. This was my wish? Stuck in an hourglass? I bent down and glanced through the hole to the chamber below. Something else was down there, I realized. Something buried in the sand. It moved and I jumped back. But I could not resist. I bent over again. The movement continued, as if something were shaking off the dust of time. I gasped. There, beneath me, was an eye. An enormous eyeball. And it was staring up at me. I was not alone.
In a panic, I looked for the genie. Surely, he would get me out of here. But he had left the room, apparently, so I scooted a little closer to the hole to get a better look at the eye below me. The sand kept on pouring past me. It formed a powerful current, like a the undertow the ocean, and I must have stepped too close because I suddenly felt myself being caught up in the motion. I started to slip and before I knew it, my foot had become lodged right in the opening itself. I felt another wave of panic and then noticed that the sand was rising up at my foot. I knew I was in serious trouble.
“Genie! Genie!” I yelled. “Get me out of here!”
Either he couldn’t hear me, or he was ignoring me. In either case, the genie was not going to help. That much was clear. I struggled again, trying to free my foot. I turned and twisted, with no luck. That’s when I felt it. At first, it was just a nudge. Almost gentle. And I sense some movement of the hourglass. A ripple, almost. Then, there was a sudden and powerful thud against the bottom of my foot. Then, another. Something was pushing up into me. Something strong. I realized what it was: the eye.
I was frantic now and feeling every more helpless. The eye kept pushing upward. Amazingly, I felt my foot starting to get free of the hole. There was now a bit space, just enough for me take advantage and wrench my body backwards, falling into a pile of sand. My foot was free. And then sand now continued its journey downward. I could now hear the grains of sand hitting something with a thwacking noise.
It must be the eye, I thought. It was getting pummeled by the falling sand. By helping me get free, the eye had put itself into danger. I ran to the hole and looked down. The eye was looking up, sort of sad and mournful, if that was possible. I realized that it had saved my life. And now I was watching it die.
“Hold on,” I screamed. “I’ll try to save you!”
I began digging fiercely to keep the sand from heading into the hole. It was fruitless. Time was running out.
That’s when I noticed the genie. He bent down his head until his eye was just outside the glass window.
“Having fun?” he asked, in a cruel voice.
I was just about to yell at him and demand he free me and the eye from this prison when he reached out, grabbed the hourglass and turned it upside down. My entire world spun around and I bounced from side to side, banging my head and getting sand all in my mouth. Suddenly, the hourglass was reversed. Sand was now pouring down on top of my head. And I could just make out the eye from above, looking down at me just as I had been looking down at it minutes before.
I opened my mouth to scream but sand came in and choked me. Yes, I realized with the cruelest of ironies: Time was most certainly coming to a stop.
As I was writing this, it occurred to me that this would make a great graphic novel story and maybe it is something I will try (someday). Short, sweet but creepy.
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