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Slice of Life and Day in a Sentence, convergence

I am participating in Slice of Life over at Two Writing Teachers, and more than a few of those folks have wandered over here for Day in a Sentence, and perhaps some of our Day in a Sentence folks have wandered over there. It’s like a cross-pollination of writers, minus the allergic reactions.

Here are the sentences this week:

  • My stomach was growling after Pilates, so I took a detour to Angelo’s Civita Farnese on the way home from work where I devoured a delicous meatball grinder with cheese.” — Stacey, of Two Writing Teachers.
  • Just two words: Spring Break. (edited to add: AHHHhhhh….)” — Mary Lee
  • Our incredible Archive Project with the Library of Congress was rejected by the newspaper because they only do one story a year on any one classroom…grrrrrrr…..” — Paul B.
  • High School Exit Exam schedule gave me 7 hours of extra class time with my senior marketing class to perfect their business plan presentations.” — Delaine
  • Can’t wait ’til this hectic week is over and the parade steps off in Holyoke.” — Gail P.
  • i am a burnt out teacher, ready to focus more on my husband and less on school; one gives me so much, the other drains me dry.” — sara
  • Spring break has recharged me.” — Ben D.
  • I’m still waiting for Spring. Did I miss it?” — Bonnie
  • My thoughts are with the thousands of teachers receiving pink slips in my district and wondering where I’ll be next year even though I didn’t get one.” – Matt N.
  • It’s good to be out
    of the-stocks-of-no-PC,
    and network again.
    ” — Ken
  • Experienced a very enjoyable day today, in Melbourne, meeting educationalists who have just been awarded a Department of Education and Early Childhood, monetary grant, in order to experiment with using “games in education”, including wiis, secondlife, gamemaker etc.” — Anne M.
  • I spent the day motivating my students to write reflections on Stixy.com only to have them lose my whole classes learning in one heart tearing rip, don’t use Stixy is my reflection.” — Shaun
  • It’s March Break and a week away from school, and I’ve hardly spent any time at all in the Web 2.0 world. I’ve been making lots of pots of green tea, getting caught up on my reading and finishing off several knitting projects. It feels good!” — Elona
  • I must say, that this assignment/request/challenge–that of writing a Slice in one sentence–reminds me of a term at grad school, when the professor (an amazing poet of some reknown) declared that we would write poems, and not the usual free verse we’d been used to as undergrads, but rather would attempt (her words, not mine) to write them in a certain form that only she, as the professor, would choose because after all, we were there to learn, weren’t we, and at this we all nodded and took to writing in villanelles, sonnets, blank verse, Shakespeare’s favorite of iambic pentameter; we slaved over these forms, willing ourselves to be swept up! taken up! transformed by the sheer rigor of form, rather than letting our messy selves be untidy and unkempt–for form championed all, and it gave a structure for which to tackle the difficult, as did Browning in his romantic and oft-quoted sonnets–and in our puny lives we figured our difficulties would move us to write transcendent pantoums, ballads and sestinas and so eagerly did we attend to our task that we were completely surprised, that final week of class, to learn that our assignment now was to lay aside the form and write from the heart, not being restrained by either ancient or modern verbal shackles, as she felt that we had learned our lessons and now would write better for having tried, we would write better for attempting the difficult, that we would write (so she hoped–and so did we) . . . better. ~or~

    The scent of orange blossoms fills the air, competing with freesias and wisteria for my attention.” — Elizabeth

  • My week was short, but the days were long and filled with so many different types of moments: stressful, fun, contemplative, productive, counter-productive, and even a few teaching moments (when I really FELT like a teacher).” – Karen McM.
  • Spring has arrived at last with daffodils on the desk and daffy kids dancing in the halls.” — Mary F.
  • Grandbaby leaving, cousin dying in her sleep, playing for her funeral, reuniting with family from across the country=a week full of ups and downs.” — Cynthia
  • One week of vacation is never enough.” — Lisa
  • Spring Break lies ahead with nine days, all under my control, for reading, napping, writing, gardening, creating, cleaning, visiting, and whatever I choose.” — Becky
  • Nothing but angst, nothing but hunger, an english lesson and then more nothing but a headache. =]”Gary
  • My week was a thrilling blur of student teachers; 2 and a half days of literacy PD; the usual welfare issues and hormonal teenagers (not mine). Wouldn’t change a thing.” — Marg
  • Shooting video left and right (Quidditch, Webcomic Convention, Slice of Life) has me seeing the world through a viewfinder — small and focused.” — Kevin

Peace (in sharing),
Kevin

Slice of Life: remembering my great-grandmother

(This is part of the Slice of Life project)

Next week, in our final lessons around paragraph writing, my students are going to be creating short digital stories around narrative paragraph writing. Their aim is to find a physical object, and write about the strong memories attached with that object. It could be a souvenir from a vacation, something handed down from a family member, a trophy or medal from a competition, etc.

Yesterday, I began by reading Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partidge by Mem Fox, a wonderful picture book about a little child who helps an eldery friend “find” her memories by giving her a series of objects. OK, the book is for younger kids, but mine were quiet and interested and attentive as I read this one aloud to them, and talked about our own relatives who have lost their memories over time.

This led to me sharing my own narrative paragraph story about a tea cup that used to be my great-grandmother’s. It reminds me still of her, many years later.  This was first a podcast from last year, but I merged that old audio with some pictures. My students loved it and I hope it moves them to create their own wonderful narratives.

Next week, we move into Photostory for creation. This week, they find their objects, and their memories.

Here is my story:

Peace (in memories),
Kevin

Away from the blog … for now

Thanks for stopping by. The blog will be silent for about 10 days or so.

Peace (in travels),
Kevin

Current Events … as rap

This is an interesting site … The Week in Rap takes the current events and creates a video, with a rap song whose lyrics explain the news of the day. They do a pretty decent job, too, and I bet kids would be engaged to listen and watch and then think about the importance. And, of course, perhaps then they could make their own Current Events Rap song.

Here is the video about the inauguration:


The Week in Rap – Obama’s Inauguration from Week in Rap on Vimeo.

Peace (in bustin’ rhymes of the times),
Kevin

Another interesting example of Stopmotion

This movie was in my RSS feed. It’s pretty neat.


from Rex The Dog on Vimeo.

Kevin

Guest Blogging at Learn Me Good

(Note: I tried posting this yesterday and something strange happened and it went out blank. So, here I go again. Kevin)
I have never tried guest blogging before. This is when someone else opens up their blog to readers, who then move from the one making the comments or doing the reading to the one who is doing the main writing on a blog. But when John Pearson, who runs the blog Learn Me Good, put out the call for guest bloggers a few weeks ago, I put my name into the mix. John wrote a fictional book called Learn Me Good about teaching and it is a funny tale.
Yesterday, John ran my guest post, which is all about the realization that I had that some students whose experience with technology were far beyond me, the so-called expert in the classroom. I came to understand the techno-lives of some of my students is richer than I had thought. The post is called “Who’s the Expert, Anyway?” and it also notes how the story later helped me think about my webcomic, Boolean Squared.
John goes by the handle, Mr. Teacher, and now I wonder if his book wasn’t in the back of my head as I created the character of Mr. Teach. Hmmm. (Shhh. Don’t tell John.)
Peace (in the guest house),
Kevin
PS — John also writes a column called Mr. Teacher for Education.Com that is worth a read.