Slice of Life: When Tales Get Fractured

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We’re just starting a short unit on plays and drama, as I break my classes into groups for some fractured fairy tales. They are a hoot, allow for collaboration and fun at the start of the year, and give me a chance to get some data on reading fluency. It’s a read-aloud activity, not a memorize activity, and completely low stakes. I bring this up because this morning, over at National Writing Project writing site that I am part of (known as the iAnthology), the host of this week’s writing prompt put up a post about writing “non-linear narratives” with fairy tales.

I dove in, as I already had such stories on my mind this morning.

Here’s what I wrote:

The Hero Cat

It’s not easy being Rapunzel’s cat, you know? I’ve lost six lives already just jumping down from various windows trying to get her some help. What is it with these witches, anyway? Punz thinks they are just jealous of her hair but I don’t know. It must be something nuttier than that. You ever wonder if there is some writer in the cloud, crafting out our lives as stories and adding drama when things get a little boring? I do, although I can’t say there is a lot of rhyme or reason to how our lives unfold. I mean, we both heard about that tragic news story of the women who were held captive in that house for ten years. How do you explain that? Punz and I were sad, but understood that familiar tale. Although they had a monster, not a witch.

And they did not have a cat.

Still, here we are again, stuck in the upper room of an abandoned castle. I don’t even remember why this witch wanted her here. The stories are getting all fractured and confusing. Anyway, we spend our days in a routine. Punz combs her hair, which takes hours and then she starts over again, and I chase lose hair strands around the room until I get bored. You’d be surprised how many times I can do that, though. The chasing keeps me sane. And who can resist? Every other day or so, Punz tries to get me to jump again. The last six times … let’s just say I never want to do that again. But I care about this kid. She needs protecting.

This morning, when she rubbed my head and hit that sweet spot under my chin, my defenses crumbled. I’m going. I’m jumping. And if it is anything like last time, it’s going to hurt. She is all smiles as I pull on these special boots I was given by another witch — I know! More witches! I can’t explain — as I hope they might break the fall a bit.  Punz calls me, “My Hero, Puss in Boots.” If I had thumbs and fingers, I could just shimmy down her hair, the same way those heroes all have come up. Still, you should hear her cry when they use her hair as a ladder. That’s gotta hurt.

I give Punz a goodbye rub of the back and tail, and savor a moment of cudding as she tells me I am the best cat in the whole world. Then, I am up on the window sill. Then, in the air … falling, falling … Believe it or not, there is an incredible moment to think about what it means to be the kind of cat I am, a hero cat, whose mission in nine lives is to save the beautiful princess again and again.

No one ever tells those stories. Not even that great writer in the cloud.


Peace (in the share),
Kevin

 

Slice of Life: Sowing the Seeds of Confusion to Spark Comprehension

(This post is doing double duty here. It is part of the regular Slice of Life feature at Two Writing Teachers and part of the Close Reading being examined by Chris Lehman and Kate Roberts. Now that I think of it, this makes sense since Teachers College is a connection between Chris, Kate and Stacy at Two Writing Teachers. Right? Anyway …)

crazy reading passage

I’ve written about this activity before but I am starting to think about it in terms of the idea of Close Reading and the Common Core shifts even more closely lately. Here at the start of the year, as we talk about difficult texts and reading strategies around meaning, I share this piece of story with my sixth graders. Yesterday, I put this on the board and, with stern face, I told my students we were doing a “reading assessment.”

They gulped at that term, and then began to read it.

Then they laughed, and giggled, and when I asked volunteers to read it out aloud, they got a kick out of reading and listening. We read it out loud three times (I did it the third time). I then told them that there are strategies that can be helpful when you come across some text that, on first brush, seems vexing and confusing, or even downright odd. It’s not enough just to shake your head and move on. Good readers learn to stop, re-read and then think about the words and meaning in context of the larger system of writing.

Readers become detectives.

So, for example, as we use this small piece, they begin to realize they know when this event took place, who was involved, what was happening, and what was being communicated from one character to another. That’s a lot of information from a reading piece that on first glance makes no sense at all. (And by the way, this short piece was adapted from a text someone once gave me that is used with dyslexic students, to nurture reading strategies.)

This activity ties into teaching them Close Reading skills on a few levels: re-reading the text for clarity and understanding, narrowing the focus on elements of the text, grappling with writer’s intent and meaning even when that isn’t clear. My hope is that as we revisit these elements this year, we will have this anchor text (even if it is ridiculous, or maybe because it is ridiculous that they will remember it) to return to to remind ourselves some of the strategies.

Or as Flinkledobe would say, “This ditty strezzle is tunning in my grep!”

Peace (in the read),
Kevin

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Slice of Life: Connecting and Conversations

(Note: This is a Slice of Life post. You can join in with your own slice, too. Head over to Two Writing Teachers to get more information about the writing activity that takes place online every Tuesday.)
MountainMoonTalk 2013

We’ve just started school but we had the pleasure yesterday of connecting our classroom in Western Massachusetts with a class out in Arizona to talk about a book that both classes have read: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin. This book was our entire school’s summer read but the students in Arizona are using it as a read-aloud. They’ve done a whole lot more work that we have and they shared out a lot of great ideas about the book, asked questions and considered a few different angles of the rich storyline of a character who heads off on an adventure in China to bring good luck to her village and family.

This is the first time my students have connected with another classroom, and they were pretty focused and jazzed up about it, even though we had some trouble hearing and they had some trouble hearing us. I realize I need to have a better system of students being closer to the computer for sharing — a little chair or something — and because we are at the start of the year, I didn’t feel quite as prepared as I would have liked for my own students sharing.

But my teaching friends in Arizona — Michael Buist (whom I met during our Making Learning Connected MOOC) and Jennifer Nusbaum — were great to work with, and I love extending the classroom beyond our walls, reaching out to make my students feel connected to something larger than themselves. It was a great first step at the start of the year.

Peace (in the discussion),
Kevin

PS — here is the whole hangout:

 

 

From Slice of Life to Six Word Stories: Teachers With Students

This weekend, as part of a professional development session I was co-facilitating, I asked the teachers into the room to ‘write into the day’ with a Slice of Life prompt — find a moment in which in you interacted with a student, and write about it. Almost everyone shared their Slice of Life out, and it was a wonderful range of stories — from inspiring, to discoveries, to frustrations.

Next, I asked them to focus even further — and narrow down their Slice to a Six Word Memoir. Many expressed difficulty with this task, and yet, they did an amazing job. We used Padlet (formerly Wallwisher) to post their six word stories. As I explained, not only were they learning about a new technology tool, they were publishing AND gaining some ideas for how to get their students to write in a variety of formats and technologies (from pen to the web).

Check it out:

Peace (on the wall),
Kevin

 

Slice of Life: The Contemplative Quiet of Writing in PD

(I haven’t done a Slice of Life post in a few weeks, but felt this scene deserved its moment.)

Yesterday afternoon, I was facilitating some professional development through the Western Massachusetts Writing Project in a local urban school. We’ve been working with the teachers and administrators there since January, pursuing topics of classroom inquiry to help frame the importance of writing in a school that has struggled over the last few years. As is the custom of WMWP and National Writing Project events, I started us out with a simple “writing into the day” prompt that would lead to discussion. They wrote about an insight gained and a question that remains.

You could hear a pin drop as we all wrote for about 10 minutes. There’s a certain magical silence when a room full of people — teachers or students — are in the act of writing, as if the brainpower and thinking were concentrated on the paper (and computer keyboards). It’s very contemplative to be in the midst of that, isn’t it? Midway through the writing session, the principal (who has been participating when she can) came in, stopped in the doorway and looked at the roomful of her teachers, writing with concentration. I hoped she would not say a thing, and just let the magic continue, but that wasn’t to be.

“What’s going on in here?” she asked.

“Writing,” I replied, and then got her settled into the back of the room, where she started to write, too.

Peace (in the words),
Kevin

 

Slice of Life Comes to a Close (for now)

This is for Slice of Life challenge, a month-long activity of writing about the small moments in your life. Ruth and Stacey, over at Two Writing Teachers, host and support Slice of Life, but they also open their blog up each and every Tuesday for regular Slice of Life writing. You’re invited!


Peace (in the slice),
Kevin

Slice of Life: Having Fun with Close Reading

This is for Slice of Life.
6words jabberwocky
Ok, so maybe close reading activities are not always fun, but we did our best yesterday as I introduced my sixth graders to the classic poem, Jabberwocky. First, we cold-read the Lewis Carroll poem, and here I had students volunteer to try their hand at reading the nonsense words. Then, I read it, in dramatic fashion. We then talked about the structure, and the story underneath the poem, looking for points of evidence. Finally, we watched the Muppets version of the poem, which is completely wacky and silly, and just the right tone to wrap up our close reading activity.

Peace (in the nonsense),
Kevin

Slice of Life: Teachers Who Made a Difference (in my life)

This is for Slice of Life, although the idea began over at our National Writing Project iAnthology site, we’ve been writing about teachers who made a difference in our lives. I created the following comic to remember three teachers whose philosophies and styles linger with me.

Influential Teachers

Peace (in the past),
Kevin