If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. ~ Charlie Parker
Slice of Life
Slice of Life: Slowing Down Time
Mar 22nd
We were settling into a nighttime routine, my son and I, slowing down the day before sleep.
“What words did you learn at school today?”
“AT!” he shouts, with some frustration. He’s only six.
“At?”
“We already knew it. It was already in our circle. Next to ‘the,’ and ‘to,’ and ‘and.’ You know … the circle,” he says, using his hands to demonstrate the circle. The circle is where they keep high-use words that they are learning in his kindergarten class.
“Well, it’s good to keep using new words.” I sound more like a teacher than a dad at that point, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
He nods, the frustration now fading.
I have watched him closely this year in kindergarten. His reading and writing skills has blossomed so much since September. Each week seems to bring new developments in his learning. With two other kids, you would think this would be no surprise. But it is. He surprises me daily.
When we read books, he picks out words from the text to read. He’s writing little stories, making comics. “We’re making books and books and books,” he informed me earlier in the day. He and two friends have become co-authors on what I can only guess, knowing them, will be another history of the Star Wars Universe.
His literacy development is on full display, if we just take the time to watch and observe him, and ask questions. His teacher is doing a great job, pushing him and nurturing him. And so is he. I guess we are, as well.
Peace (in the snapshot),
Kevin
Slice of Life: Very Small Twitter Poems
Mar 21st
Yesterday morning, I read an article from The New York Times about efforts by writers to use the Twitter format to write very short poems. I am always intrigued by how technology informs our writing, and how our writing can be adapted to technology. So, throughout the day, I tried my hand at some Twitter poems, and used the #poetweet hashtag to share my writing with others.
It’s challenging, as you can imagine. The constraints of 140 characters leaves very little room for exploration. You need to be short and you need to choose your words carefully. It’s a great exercise in editing, actually, and I wonder if some variation might not work well in the classroom.
Here are some of the poems as screenshots off Twitter, which I recast into podcasts this morning, too.
Peace (in the poems),
Kevin
Slice of Life: Leading a Digital Storytelling Workshop
Mar 20th
I spent four hours yesterday with a small group of teachers in our school district who wanted to learn more about digital storytelling. The principal found some money for Professional Development, we negotiated a fair price, and I developed a plan of action for the day, along with multiple resources.
The session went wonderfully well. We were doing hands-on work with Google Search Stories, then into iMovie, and then onto Voicethread. I peppered my work with leading questions around how technology and media are changing our perceptions of composition (and we had a long conversation about how important “design” is in this world). There was laughter, silence, sharing and reflection.
(see some of the Search Stories they created)
Then, one of the teachers asked, “What is this Writing Project I see on some of the books and papers you brought?”
It was an opening I wasn’t quite expecting, but I was ready to explain all about the National Writing Project, and most important, I talked about how the experiences within the NWP prepared me for the kinds of presentations I was doing with them. It was one teacher sharing their knowledge with another, or teachers teaching teachers. It was hands-on activities, followed by reflective pedagogical practice. It was examining what the students might need for learning. It was even about bringing enough food to the session.
(See a voicethread they played around with)
I owe a lot to the Western Massachusetts Writing Project for my ability to lead workshops and PD sessions. My experience there, and the nurturing that I got over the years (I remember Paul Oh inviting me to be his partner at my first National Writing Project Annual Meeting, to talk about advanced summer technology institutes) has profoundly shaped me as a workshop leader. I never would have known I had it in me, to be honest, until someone tapped me on the shoulder (Paul and Bruce Penniman, among others) and said, you should do this. You can do this. The door opened for me and it has remained open since then, and that has forever changed my own perception of myself as an educator.
Whether or not my teaching colleagues from yesterday follow me into the WMWP, they certainly got a taste of what it means to be in a NWP session around writing and technology. They were learning. They were doing. They were reflecting. They were writing.
(You can come view our workshop website and use the resources as needed. The NWP is also about sharing with the world).
Peace (in the workshop model),
Kevin
Slice of Life/#blog4nwp: A Found Poem
Mar 19th
During free moments yesterday, I was reading many of the blog posts from National Writing Project teachers and supporters yesterday as we launched into a #Blog4NWP weekend to let our voices be heard about the importance of the NWP in our teaching and writing lives (read mine here).
I was often struck by some powerful phrases from many of my NWP colleagues and decided that it might be interesting to try a found poem from various blog posts. So, with sincere apologies to many of the bloggers whose words I have “borrowed” here (and possibly adapted slightly), I present my found poem and podcast. The links in the poem should bring you to the original post.
Dancing on the Surface of Water: A Found Poem
(listen to the poem)When 130,000 teachers
reach 1.4 million students,
how can you argue that these professionals are not finding powerful ways
to motivate,
to educate,
to push learning in new directions ….Great teaching is not as simple as breathing;
it doesn’t come out of a sparkling spring bubbling up from nowhere
as if it were some magic elixir handed down in secret handshakes
in shadowed hallways.
Great teaching comes from mentors,
from connections,
from learning together what works
and what may not work,
and reflecting on how we might adapt next time
to make more impact.The small pebble of federal support creates a ripple effect
extending out,
expanding across classrooms
and schools
and cities and towns everywhere,
allowing us some precious moments to dance upon the surface of water.We reach out our hands to our young writers — the struggling and the confident –
so that they, too, may make sense of their world on the page.
When they discover their power as a writer, their lives may be altered forever.
We teach for moments like these
and celebrate their arrival with the intangibles of
praise,
and wonderment,
and community.The National Writing Project has been a refuge,
an intellectual and professional and collegial home
that has done more for us as teachers of teachers than even we might have first imagined
when we gathered together with strangers one summer
only to emerge as colleagues
- and as teachers of writing, it has meant more than we would have dreamed possible.
Each summer, teachers from across each state meet for weeks
to eat, sleep, dream and inhale writing.
They come together to do the essential, albeit difficult, work in their classrooms
of moving pens to paper, of words to the screen,
of thoughts into action,
of transforming young thinkers into powerful writers.
It is only because we are teachers
that we can truly begin to conceive of ourselves as writers.
We are dedicated to the development of networks.
And writing.
And, of course, to thinkingWe’re counting on you, our government leaders,
to be an authentic audience for us
and our students.
We ask that you show support for the young great American authors working across
information age media that you –
with your support and with your ears open to the possibilities
of teachers learning together –
will help us as teachers to
discover,
nurture,
and celebrate
even in these times of fiscal constraints.
We’re counting on you.
Peace (in the poem),
Kevin
Slice of Life: Rally for the NWP
Mar 18th
This is going to be a short Slice of Life today because most of my writing energy was taken up with composing a piece about saving the National Writing Project. We lost our federal funding and this weekend, those of us who are online are trying rally support for our organization by blogging and lobbying our legislators. If you have been part of any NWP event, or understand its importance in helping teachers, I’d encourage you to blog about it as well.
This is my post: Why the National Writing Project Matters
And organizer Chad Sansing has more information about the #blog4nwp weekend here at his own blog.
Me? I seem to have lost some of my actual voice with a cold (just in time for a four hour workshop tomorrow around digital storytelling) but my fingers are working just fine, and my other voice — my digital voice — feels pretty strong today.
I hope you can join us as writers, or at least, as readers and supporters of the National Writing Project.
Peace (in the rally),
Kevin
Slice of Life: Atomic Blur
Mar 17th
(This is part of the Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers)
Yesterday, we spent about an hour beginning our class discussions about our game of Quidditch (which we play at our school every year). The choosing of a team name can be tricky, but like most everything with my class this year, the process went rather smoothly. I love this class. We brainstormed about 20 possible names, went through a voting process and narrowed it down to a name that they all seemed to like.
We are Atomic Blur.
I can’t help but wonder if the situation in Japan has influenced their name choice. Another team is Biohazard, and a third (whose name escapes me right now) also seems to hint at the disaster in Japan.
Today, I am going to have them write fictional “back stories” to the names of their teams, suggesting they invent a superhero character with the name of their team. I jumped onto our webcomic site this morning and quickly created this one as a starting point.
Peace (in the blur),
Kevin
Slice of Life: A Whole Lot of Words
Mar 16th
2,964.
This is the number that reflects the grading I have been doing for the past five days in between sports events with my sons, lesson plans for school, teaching, eating, sleeping, talking to my wife, petting the dog and doing all of the things that people do when not working.
2,964 is the number of Parts of Speech words I have been looking at through my teaching lens, examining and, in some cases, explaining in writing why “to” is a verb in that case and not a preposition. I have 78 students, who each had to color code Parts of Speech words in a project (identifying words in their own writing). There were 38 Parts of Speech that had to be identified for each student.
Here’s the break down of the words I read:
- 790 nouns
- 790 verbs
- 395 adjectives
- 395 adverbs
- 234 prepositions
- 234 pronouns
- 78 conjunctions
- 78 interjections
And overall? They did great. I am very impressed by the effort and hard work that went into this project. I’ve written before about how odd it is to have kids pick apart writing to get to the word level, but I was most impressed by the writing itself. They had to write a narrative about themselves to use as text for color coding. It’s nice to see how far so many have come from where they were as writers at the start of the year.
But I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was sick of Parts of Speech right now. (so are my students).
Peace (that’s a noun, right?),
Kevin
Slice of Life Video: Inside the Pyramids
Mar 15th
(This is part of the Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers)
I normally get to school a bit earlier than most of my colleagues — it’s that time to get my head ready for teaching — and I was wandering down the hallways, looking at this recent social studies project that my teaching colleague does with our kids. The students create pyramids of what they would bring into the afterlife with them, and then they put the pyramids on top of their lockers.
Here’s a brief video tour of a few of them.
Hallway Lockers from Mr. Hodgson on Vimeo.
Peace (in the inside look),
Kevin
Slice of Life: The Rubber Stamp Collection for Teachers
Mar 14th
Yesterday, I got inspired by a piece I read at McSweeney’s Internet Tendencies humor site about potential rubber stamps that writing teachers would want to have handy when correcting student papers. It cracked me up. And then, on Twitter, I started to create and share my own over the course of the day. So, here I present to you, my collection of possible Writing Rubber Stamps for Teachers:
“Remind me when I said you could use a bright pink gel pen for final projects? You owe me a pair of glasses.”
“Lovely. Beautiful. Stunning. Don’t Stop”
“Remember that graphic organizer we used? Did you use it?”
“I hope someday to walk in a bookstore and see your book on display. You’re an amazing young writer.”
“Do you really know where this story is going? ‘Cause I don’t.”
“I wish the standardized test knew you were such a poet. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. “
“i before e except after c. Or better yet, why not use that spellcheck on the computer you used to type this thing.”
“You flip tense so much I don’t know if I am in the future, present or past. I’m gonna barf.”
“Your character in your story was just perfect. I felt as if he/she were walking into the room as I read.”
“I know you love animated clip art. But dancing bears and exploding pigeons have no place in this essay.”
“In the future, if the eraser shreds the paper, please get a new paper. We have plenty.”
“You know that second paragraph? The one with words you can’t pronounce? Should I Google it?”
“I’m a little worried about your imitation of ee cummings in this college application letter.”
“Kindly inform your parents that their work on your paper resulted in a solid B grade.”
“I believe you once again confused your math project with your writing project.”
“Misspelling your own name on a final paper will ALWAYS result in some lost points. Try to practice.”
“Coincidence is magic. You and your girlfriend/boyfriend’s exact answers on the test is pure kismet.”
“The joy you put into this is assignment is the joy I will have reading it. The pain, too.”
If you have any rubber stamp ideas, let me know.
Peace (on the stamp),
Kevin
Slice of Life: Counting Cars; Supporting Writing
Mar 13th
(This is part of the Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers)
“Blue one.”
“Yellow one.”
Driving. Driving. My eyes are on the road.
“Black one.”
My ears are on the kids, who are scanning the roadway like vultures for fallen prey.
“Black one.”
“It’s not. It’s a Mercedes.”
“Sorry.”
Driving, driving.
“Blackoneblueoneyellowonebla…”
“You can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a dealership.”
“Fine.”
“Yellow one.”
“Ouch.”
“Sorry.”
Somewhere, someone in the VW company is smiling. Talk about a viral advertising campaign. “Punch Buggy” is perfectly suited for adolescent boys, isn’t it? They’re usually bored on the drive. They love cars. And punching each other on the arm is just a perfect way to score a point.
Given the recent financial difficulties of the National Writing Project, it occurred to me as I was writing this post that we need something similar for times when we see any kind of writing that has been inspired by a teacher. It would raise the profile of writing and teaching, right? We could call it “Word Tap.” When you see the writing, you tap someone one the shoulder.
“Creative one!”
“Poetic one!”
“Informational one!”
“Ouch.”
“Sorry.”
Peace (in the game),
Kevin
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