(The Slice of Life Challenge in March has been hosted by Two Writing Teachers as way to encourage teachers-as-writers. There is also a monthly call for Slices on Tuesdays. You can write then, too)
Every Sentence that’s been a Slice has narrowed my writer’s focus to single small moments of time and yet, in constructing the days in this constrained way, each string of words inadvertently left out much more than I could say.
Peace (as prose and poem),
Kevin
(The Slice of Life Challenge in March is hosted by Two Writing Teachers as way to encourage teachers-as-writers. You can join in, if you want. There is also a monthly call for Slices on Tuesdays. You can write then, too)
Picture this: a young woman hops on her skateboard and foot-propels herself down the street at the town center, with an acoustic guitar dangling from a strap on her right shoulder and bouncing in rhythm to her movements.
Peace (sharing it),
Kevin
(The Slice of Life Challenge in March is hosted by Two Writing Teachers as way to encourage teachers-as-writers. You can join in, if you want. There is also a monthly call for Slices on Tuesdays. You can write then, too)
Why am I spending so much of my free time refreshing government websites that don’t seem to function right in order to find a scheduling spot on a calendar that doesn’t seem to have openings for a vaccine that may not yet be in abundance enough to be readily available?*
Peace (refreshing it often),
Kevin
*Our school is coming back full, in phases, starting next week with my grade. That’s one reason why.
(The Slice of Life Challenge in March is hosted by Two Writing Teachers as way to encourage teachers-as-writers. You can join in, if you want. There is also a monthly call for Slices on Tuesdays. You can write then, too)
What I had at first hoped would be a straightforward technology lesson for students — using Quicktime to capture voice on audio — became, instead, incredibly unexpectedly complicated due to the distance between us — me, at home, with screenshots and tutorials; them, at home, using an unfamiliar application; and Zoom, refusing to play nice in allowing me to show what I needed to show.
Peace (finding the button),
Kevin
(The Slice of Life Challenge in March is hosted by Two Writing Teachers as way to encourage teachers-as-writers. You can join in, if you want. There is also a monthly call for Slices on Tuesdays. You can write then, too)
I laughed, and then she laughed, and then we all laughed as the insult generator landed on a particularly funny Shakespearean phrase that she expertly lobbed my way with her voice, cushioned first by a heartfelt apology not even necessary.
Peace (from the classroom),
Kevin
I am once again taking part in the month-long Slice of Life Challenge with Two Writing Teachers (now, many hands on deck), and as usual, I am starting the month of March, as many do, wondering how in the world am I going to write a Slice each day?
I mean, I write every day.
But I’ve been mostly writing my poems and doing art/creative stuff with DS106 and skipping Saturdays and doing only photographs for Silent Sundays.
But … I remembered another project a long time back … Day in a Sentence … it, too, was a friendly challenge for teachers to write, but to do so by writing a summary of an entire day, in one single sentence.
So, I figure, why not combine the two concepts on some (but maybe not all) days of the Slice of Life? I even still have the Day in a Sentence icon in my blog media bin.
How cool is that?
So, here is my Day in a Sentence for my first Slice of Life 2021:
Morning fog obscures the pre-dawn street, as the dogs — young, nearly always, leading old — just keep on pulling me forward into the day.
Peace (short but sweet),
Kevin
Over at our National Writing Project iAnthology social networking site, I hosted a writing prompt this past week called Day in a Sentence (which used to be a regular weekly writing activity here and in other spaces). I love how folks boil down their day or their week into a single reflective sentence. And the one sentence format makes it easy to create interesting projects. I took the collection of Days in a Sentences this week and put them into a Glog.
Peace (in the days),
Kevin
PS — Do you have a sentence? Add it as a comment.
Shhhhh.
No one knows who is doing it. But it’s me. I am one the sneaking around our hallway, posting sticky notes with poems on them, and creating a sort of graffiti display of poetry in an empty display case. I’ve been watching the kids slow down, take a look and wonder who it is who is putting those small poems in the large case.
It all began when I was doing a Scholastic book order a few weeks ago. I saw this collection called Post This Poem (which, frustratingly, I cannot find online anywhere, so I can’t share a link with you.). I had some bonus points from our recent orders. Why not? It’s a cool little thing. One hundred poems and stanzas of longer poems on colorful post-it notes.
Each morning this week, I have been adding a few more poems in the morning before school starts. Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Carl Sandburg and many others now sharing the hallways with our students.
Shhhhhh.
Don’t tell anyone. It will be our little poetic secret.
Peace (in the poems),
Kevin
Yo – you may have heard about teachers in the curve using words as a way to connect, reflect and dissect the fragile moments of their days, so let me say to you today that the space is open wide across the geographic divide and I extend a hand to you to come on inside the Day in a Sentence with a moment, a slice, something sad or something nice, something that gives you pause and when you do, listen for the applause across this great big wide world. I have spoken – Day in a Sentence is open! (listen to the prose poem invite)
How do participate?
Peace (in the hip-hop prose poem),
Kevin
Some weeks are like that. Slow. I had just two responses to this week’s Days in a Sentence, and I appreciate both Cindy (here at the blog) and Brian (over at Google+) for sharing their reflective thoughts.
Cindy writes: Heads bent slightly, pages turning faster, eyes wide open – a groan of frustration when the timer goes – these flashes of my favorite moments this week are only rivaled by the chorus of voices asking my favorite question: “Can you help me find something to read next?” I love that picture of her students, so intent on reading that nothing else matters … including what happens next, and then the turn to the teacher, asking for some guidance on a book. Wonderful.
And Brian‘s sentence is just as wonderful, as he writes of himself as the writer. Brian: “I picked up the pen and a new notebook and wrote before school, during school, after school at my daughter’s soccer practice, in bed before sleep and then again in the morning before school and it has been one of the best weeks in a long time.”
And I will add a second sentence to the mix this week, too. We just finished up our first full five-day week last week and I do a fluency activity with read-aloud fractured fairy tale plays. “The sounds of chatter and laughter filled the room left empty by summer, signalling a year ahead of creative ventures here in our shared space in which I hope they will emerge as confident writers and readers.”
Thanks again to Cindy and Brian. I hope you will join us, too, next time for Day in a Sentence.
Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin