Author Archives: dogtrax

Slice of Life: A New Song on the Mind

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Slice of Life(This is part of the Slice of Life project at Two Writing Teachers)

I spent much of the morning yesterday writing a new song because late today, I am going to be getting together with some colleagues from school to jam and write songs and make music. That prospect always gets me fired up and this will be our first time together, for the most part (a few of us played at our recent benefit concert).

So, I figured I would challenge myself by writing a new song. I had the words and rhythms floating around my head all day and through the night, too, which is how I write. I get sort of obsessive about it. OK, not sort of. Very obsessive. The song becomes the inner soundtrack of my days.

I am always afraid that I will “lose” the song (which has happened more than once) and so, repetition is key, and also, that repetition (even in the comfortable silence of my own mind) allows me to try out new words and phrases.

For example, I later thought that “ease” should be “change,” as that would be a more powerful story — asking someone to change their mind about a relationship is much different than trying to ease their fears. The narrator here (it’s not me) would be a bit more desperate in their message if they knew they had to change their lover’s mind about the relationship. I’ve kept it as written, for now, but I thought a lot about how that one change would change the entire mood and meaning of the song.

Here is it:

Ease Your Mind
(listen to the demo)

You sound so lonely
I can hear it on the phone
Baby, if only
I were there to hold you
I’d take you in, so let’s begin
to ease your mind

We’re walking on the tightrope
and we might fall
I’m holding out for hope
Hope that we stand tall
inside this place where there’s some space
to ease your mind

Hold out your hand
and watch as the world slips away
We can talk about it later
While we’re living here today
and I need you here

I hear the distance
and silence of the days
I’m lost in the whispers
coming through the haze
I keep you close just like a ghost
and ease your mind

Peace (in the muse),
Kevin

Slice of Life: Lock-Down

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Slice of Life

(This is part of the Slice of Life project at Two Writing Teachers)

It’s not easy to keep a room of antsy sixth graders quiet, and sitting in the corner of a room, for 20 minutes, but we pulled off this feat yesterday as our school rehearsed an Emergency Lock-Down Drill in the morning. Near one of my walls, there is a smiling flower on the wall — the safety zone — and we all crammed into the space and waited.

And waited. And waited.

Have I ever mentioned that I have students who rarely ever stop talking? Sure, during quiet reading, with me strategically locating them around the room, we can do about 15 minutes of silence.

But 20 minutes? In a small corner of the room? Together?

We did it, though, and when the police officer pounded on our door and then unlocked the door, we all jumped a bit, but then, relief washed over us as he told us we were free to continue on with what we were doing. They made up for the silence with a burst of chattiness, and I didn’t mind a bit.

We have at least two more drills coming which the kids will not know about (this one, they did) and so, we will see how that goes. I don’t mind our school being prepared, although I had a few students stressing out about it all, watching the clock for the time of the drill.

Today, however, they all shone like quiet stars.

Peace (in the silence),
Kevin

“Safe Mode” with YouTube Videos

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This is a good thing — the easy ability to push a YouTube video into safety mode, cutting out the possibility of unexpected and unwanted links and content that YouTube considers to be related to the video at hand. It’s actually a simple link at the bottom of each YouTube video and for teachers, in particular, this tiny change could potentially open up sharing of videos with classes (maybe). Removing possible objectionable content is something that all teachers needs to have some control over.
In fact, I am going to head over to my colleague in Social Studies this morning and show him it, since he does use YouTube quite a bit for historical videos and I often worry for him about the links and video suggestions that are linked to the videos (I have shown him a few sites that scrape the additional stuff away from YouTube but that is one step that he doesn’t often do. This is easy because it is right there, at the bottom of the page of the video itself).

Here is the video overview of how to put YouTube videos into Safe Mode and why you would do it:

Peace (in the safe zone),
Kevin

Looking for floating metaphors for your Days

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dayinsentenceiconMary is hosting this week’s Day in a Sentence and her call for words is one that I don’t think we have done yet. She asks you to reflect on your week or your day by comparing it to a ship or boat.

Come join us over at Mary’s blog, Writing With Technology.

Leave your sentence/metaphor at her blog in the comment box, and she will be collecting and then publishing them all together in the coming days. Everyone is invited (that means you, dear reader).

Peace (on the waves),
Kevin

Slice of Life: Dry Ice, baby!

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Slice of Life(This is part of the Slice of Life project at Two Writing Teachers)

I am so proud of my class.

This week, they did the difficult task of choosing a name for our Quidditch team (We play a version of Quidditch at our school in which all sixth grades compete against each other on a Tournament Day. Here is a video tutorial of our game.). This process is often difficult, as some sections of the class try to unite against others, and instead of an activity that pulls us together, it divides us apart.

And, to be honest, the mix in my class this year is one of the most challenging that I have in a long time, so I worried about it.  A lot. I also spent extra time talking about the values of community — of coming together even when you don’t quite agree, of being respectful of all the voices in the room, and of the semi-democratic process of voting and living with the final tally.

They were stars.

Respectful of each other, avoiding the comments that can undermine the class, and after brainstorming a list of about 30 names (most of which are inspired by our team color of Blue, so water and ice and cold often make their way into the mix), they were all excited when we finally arrived at a name: Dry Ice.

We then had a long discussion about a team logo for Dry Ice, and they did some sketch work on some designs. The first one ran into problems. It featured a skull and crossbones. I took it to our vice principal, who wasn’t too happy (mainly because all of the little kids in our school will make posters for the different teams).

I went back and explained where things stood, and then, as  a class, we agreed that a flying snitch might be better, and they got to work again. So, the final design is the name Dry Ice spelled out in ice cubes, with steam rising and a snitch floating in the mist. I like it, but most of all, I am proud of our class for going through the process.

Not all learning is done from a book.


Peace (in the ice),
Kevin

Slice of Life: The Man Who Wrote The Man Who Walked

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Slice of Life(This is part of the Slice of Life project at Two Writing Teachers)

So, yesterday was one of those days so crammed with activity that I could probably write four or five slices out of it, but I’ll concentrate on just this one: the renowned writer/illustrator Mordecai Gerstein came to our school to talk with my students (and others) for about an hour. Do you know him? He wrote such picture books as The Awful Alphabet, The Mountains of Tibet,  What Charlie Heard, and, one of my all-time favorites, The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, about Philippe Petite’s acrobatic dance on a wire between the now-destroyed Twin Towers of NYC. (I once did a podcast review of this book. Take a listen).

I had to pop in and out of the session (we did get our tech problem fixed for Progress Reports and I needed to check them out and print them out during this time), but he had some wonderful things to say about writing, and drawing, and making books full of imagination.

“A picture book is like a little movie theater you hold in your hand,” Gerstein said, adding that this is a low-tech way to share stories with your friends. Pass them a book and watch their eyes light up.

Earlier, as he crumpled up a large sheet of paper on purpose, he turned to the kids and urged them to take risks, make mistakes and keep trying. He was referring to drawing, but really, this is a lesson for life. I kept an eye on these 80 sixth graders, and they were pretty rapt with attention, particularly as his pen moved across the paper.

“I’ve messed up a lot of paper in my life and I hope to mess up even more,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.”

I am thankful to our art teacher and our librarian for finding ways to bring folks like Mordecai Gerstein to our school and hope his talk sparks something special in some of the kids in the audience.

But that wasn’t all that was special about the day. After meeting with Mordecai, we then boarded a bus that took us up to the high school, where the students there performed a “preview” of their incredible production of the Wizard of Oz. They were fantastic and it was so neat to see so many former students on the stage. And for my students, it was something that stirred excitement in a lot of them who are interested in drama.

Peace (in the pictures),
Kevin

I’m now also over at Instructify

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Last year, I saw a call from Bill Ferris at Instructify, searching for writers for the site. I gave it a shot, and submitted a query, and Bill started to bring me on board as a staff writer. Then budget cuts hit and I was laid off before I was even hired. A few months ago, Bill contacted me again and asked if I was still interested. Heck yes, I said (or something like that), and so now, I am starting to do some writing about resources and online apps that might be helpful to teachers.

Here is how the site is described:

The Instructify philosophy–Teach smarter, not harder.

Instructify is where teachers can stock their toolboxes with practical, time-saving classroom ideas and cutting edge methods of instruction. It’s where to find useful, free technology to utilize in the classroom. And it’s a fun place to spend your planning period.

Instructify is also a verb. To Instructify means to find new ways to present the same old content. Or MacGyvering anything from software to Post-it notes into something you can teach with. It also works great as a command. As in, “Don’t just teach, Instructify!”

I like Instructify because the posts get right to the point. I hope you will like it, too. My first article just got posted by Bill and it is about using Stopmotion Animator software with kids.  I am also working on a longer piece for Instructify’s parent site — LEARN NC. — on using online postering sites like Glogster in the classroom.

Take a look. Leave a comment. I appreciate it.

Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin

Slice of Life: The Progress Report Blues

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Slice of Life(This is part of the Slice of Life project at Two Writing Teachers)

We in the midst of our first year transition away from traditional Report Cards into standards-based Progress Reports, which has shifted us away from letter grades and into standards. I am fine with that direction, although I have some concerns about the implementation in our district. It has not really gone all that smooth but I don’t want to get too deep into it here.

My sixth grade team and I do all of our Progress Reports online (Powerteacher) and the rest of our school is on the way. It is rather time-consuming to enter each standard assessment on each line. I’ve worked a few hours on my four classes, for sure. Then, yesterday, a day before the reports are to go home (today!), a colleague noticed a quirk in what is being printed and shot me an email about it. Sure enough, two sections of my ELA reports seem to vanish when the system prints out a report.

OK, so that’s not good. I was emailing the tech folks last night to figure it out and I am hopeful that this will be fixed before the end of today, when we are sending home the reports. That’s just a few hours away. Gulp. I see an email saying they are working on it, so I am pretty hopeful but still, I hate waiting until the last minute to do anything.

Just one more headache in the mix, but luckily, there is some sweetness on tap for today with my students that I will have to write about tomorrow, after the slice happens. I just need to remember to have my camera with me during the day today.

Peace (in progress),
Kevin