Inventing Gods and Goddesses

As one of my classes finished up The Lightning Thief, their task was to invent a new God or Goddess for our sixth grade and create an election poster. Next week, we are going to have all of the sixth graders vote on the God or Goddess of our grade. There are some neat ones in the mix.

Here is a little video that I made for our class website:

Peace (in the powerful),
Kevin

Day 26: 30Poems 30Days

(Poet’s note: I was in a conference last week when the keynote speaker held up a couple of props: colored bendy straws. I forget now what she was saying — sorry — but I started to write a poem, inspired by the bends in the design. I was trying to pay attention … really.)

Peace (in the twist),
Kevin


When teachers make webcomics ….

Yesterday, as part of our school district’s Pioneer Valley Literacy Conference, I did a workshop session on using webcomics/comics/graphic novels across the curriculum areas. I focused on my students’ use of ToonDooSpaces –a  closed networking site centered around webcomics — and invited two of my students to present the first part of the workshop with me. (You are welcome to use the resource website that I set up: http://comicworkshop.yolasite.com/)

They did a fantastic job. They were both nervous (having never been asked to present to teachers before) but they talked about what they liked about the site, how they are using it to write on their own time, and then gave the teachers a virtual tour of the site. They even then created a comic right there on the spot, answering questions and talking through their thinking.

Here is what they created:

And then, after the students left, I brought them into a temporary ToonDooSpaces site, where we spent the next 90 minutes or so exploring the elements of creating, commenting, remixing comics, creating ebooks, and more.

Here are a few of the teacher-created comics from the session:

Peace (in the webcomic world),
Kevin

Day 25: 30Poems 30Days (The Digital Path)

(Poet’s note: It’s hard not to come away from an exciting conference around technology and writing and not be influenced by the work and talk around you, and so I was after our recent National Writing Project meeting. But I still have questions as we think about young people in this age of digital tools. I don’t think the world has sorted itself out yet. That makes things both exciting and confusing, don’t you think? So, this poem tries to capture that, and what better way than via a digital tool.)

First, the poem:

Where
will all this lead?
All these digital paths
pushing us in different directions
so that we can’t see the forest
for the trees
and therefore, we have no idea
what we have gotten ourselves into –
never mind getting ourselves out.

Then, the Prezi:

Peace (on the path),
Kevin

Using Webcomics Across the Curriculum

Today, I am a presenter at our school’s Literacy Conference and the only nod to technology. I am doing a session around using webcomics across the curricular areas. I’ll be bringing folks into a ToonDooSpaces site to play around and see the possibilities themselves. My task for them is to create a comic that explains an idea in math, or science, or social studies.

I am also excited because two of my students have agreed to co-present the first part of the workshop with me. They are going to give a little tour of our webcomic site and talk about how they use it and what they like about it.  I like bringing the student voice in the mix.

Here is my presentation:


Peace (in the frame),
Kevin

Day 24: 30poems 30days

(Poet’s note: This is a longer poem than usual and one that I am not quite sure it works. It is inspired by a reading of the book The Numerati, which looks at how math and data is becoming more and more important as we move more of our world online. The phrases of Buckets, and Barnicles, and Butterflies stayed with me.)

In a book about data and how numbers are becoming us
as we become the math, if you can imagine such a thing,
the concept of “barnacles” and “butterflies” and “buckets” filled my head:

Buckets are us —
all of us put into digital piles by the Numerati
based on interest, habits and exploration —
I’m happy to make room in my bucket for you
if you share my routines and my algorithm.

Barnacles are some of us —
those of us who scour the Sunday news for coupons
and search for the deals so that they can pull
a daytime heist at the store in plain sight of the
anguished managers who wish to scrape them off the sides
of the cashier line.

Butterflies are some of us, too —
those of us who wander about, never showing allegiance
to a brand, or a store, or a product, just simply
an unreliable beauty moving down a wayward path
of unpredictability.

I thought about my classroom —
about who stands in which bucket:
Who is clinging to every word to know “exactly” what to do
to get the best grade possible
but never taking a chance for fear of failure;
or who it is who barely gets a glimpse of the ground
while up in flight of their own imagination
with nary a concern for anything other than the flight.

And me?
I stand here with a net filled with holes
as the ship gets weighed down
and is pushed hard into the iceberg of standardized testing.
And you can bet my bucket is full
with teachers just like you.

Listen to the podcast of the poem.

Peace (in the numbers),
Kevin

Poetry on the Front Page

A local columnist at the regional newspaper did a nice piece last week on the 30Poems in 30Days fundraising challenge. Bob Flaherty (a novelist in his own right, by the way, with Puff) emailed me a few questions while I was away and then he checked out my voicethread and used some of what we talked about in his article.

It’s great to see the art of writing poetry on the front page of a newspaper.

Here is just the intro and then the section with me, but you can read the entire article either online at the Daily Hampshire Gazette or with this pdf link that I created.

Peace (in the news),
Kevin

Day 23: 30Poems 30Days

(Poet’s note: if  you have ever been away from home for any extended period of time, than no explanation is necessary.)

Home is where I left it
when I left it behind —
there behind that blade of grass,
those tall oak trees,
the rose bush drooping by the fence,
the laughter inside the walls.
I never saw a sidewalk more welcoming
than the one I saw that led me back home.

Listen to the podcast of the poem.

Peace (in the arrival),

Kevin

Day 22: 30Poems 30Days

(Poet’s note: Sometimes, the writing of songs comes easy. It’s as if the song were there in the guitar and just needed a doorway out. Other times? Not so easy. Those are the days when I seem to have lost the key.)

Six strings humming
on a melody
with me strumming
delicately
in hopes that a song will fall
into my lap
and write itself.

You can listen to the poem in my voicethread.

Peace (in the poems),
Kevin