The Day in a Sentence has always been purposefully minimalistic.
It’s about narrowing down your reflection to its essence. But the recent Slice of Life project (kudos to Two Writing Teachers) that I have been part of has demonstrated how insightful it might be to pull back a bit and broaden that focus.
So I am going to suggest that we consider doing just a bit more writing than a sentence this week. I ask you to consider writing a few sentences or a short paragraph that brings us inside your classroom and sharing that experience with us.
Of course, you still have the option of a single sentence (that is always the default, given the lack of time that so many of us have).
As usual, please use the comment link here at this post. I will collect all of the submissions and then post them together on Sunday. If you decide to podcast your writing, just provide me with a link or email me your audio file at dogtrax(at)gmail(dot)com and I will host for you.
The toolbox of figurative language can be fun for writers and readers, I assured my students, and then we launched into the realm of hyperbole. They caught the exaggeration bug quickly, easily telling tall tales about their lives. The alliteration was also a blast, as we tied up our tongues with our own twisters and read from Dr. Seuss’s Oh Say Can You Say. I had more volunteers to read from that book than pages and more laughter than time. But idioms? Oh my. Perhaps it is their age but idioms confused so many of them. And for my few students whose second language is English, idioms are like some bastion of imprecise phrases. One even asked, what do you mean, they don’t mean what they say? We took it slow, but not slow enough.
Peace (in slices),
Kevin
PS — Alice M. has agreed to be host of Day in a Sentence next week. If you think you may want to host, please just let me know. It is simple, yet informative.
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Very cool. I’ll try to give it a try. I have a big teacher test later today for my Lit. Specialist Certification.
For the past year, I’ve been trying to learn the art of writing RFAs (grant-speak for “applications”), and so I volunteered to draft Round 7 of the EETT (Enhancing Education Through Technology) proposal for my district. What on earth would prompt me to get involved with something the Feds are running through the Calif. Dept. of Ed?!?…Well for one thing, in the 5 years since EETT Round 1, CDE now includes a definitions of tech literacy and tech integration that align with the Partnership for the 21st century – what a difference five years and 6 rounds later can make! The section on improving school to home communications even mentions Web 2.0 as a tool for building community. So EETT has been the focus of my week. It’s going to be tight trying to make the deadline, given all the information that is required and accompanying forms that must be completed, but what the heck, I’m going for it!
Kevin,
Do I still send my Day in a Sentence submission to you if Alice is the host? Here it is hoping that you can direct it to the correct place.
Thanks!
Amy
I spent this week walking a precarious line with my student teacher. Deciding between dictating what should be done and allowing her the freedom to experiment was difficult. Keeping in mind that each teacher is different and different styles work for different people, I may have allowed too much freedom and will probably spend next week trying to provide more support so she will be ready when she has her own classroom. (Watching my nice respectful class of students turn into unfocused rude children was a scary experience, too!)