As promised, I jumped into the seat left warm by The Reflective Teacher to man his My Day in a Sentence feature. So here goes:
First, I have my own sentence.
“Emotions– from joy to sadness — came through in the voices of my students as they moved from written page to podcast on an assignment to write a narrative paragraph about an object that brings up strong memories for them.” — You can even listen to their voices, if you want.
Our regular host, The Reflective Teacher, may have been pressed for time and other commitments, but he still left us with his own sentence about how images can provide sparks for writing:
“We one-upped each other with the stories behind famous photographs; who knew these kids could teach the teachers?” — The Reflective Teacher
Nani, another friend from the National Writing Project, had a very busy week with both writing and literature.
“Everyone was tired this week but my kids and I got a lot done…made a dent in Othello with my seniors, held my Juniors’ hands as they did a synthesis essay and finished a novel with my freshmen!” — Nani
Ms. Q just wants to stay home for a day and recuperate. Who can blame her, really? She probably deserves a nice quiet day for herself.
“Monday-8:35 am-ready for the week, lesson plans set, bring em on! Monday 3:24 pm-Can I stay home tomorrow and not grade papers and not plan lessons and not read the novel we will be starting in a few weeks and play on the computer all day and watch all my Tivo’d shows and just be a kid again????? Huh, can I?” — Ms. Q
Jody may not have meant to leave this as her sentence, but, well, here I go posting it anyway because, darn it, we all want to feel normal most days (but not every day).
“Oh the joy, day in a sentence is on … thank you … another week of reading others words, relating and feeling almost NORMAL!” — Jody.
Happychyk (!) is finding the balance between home and school — between Mommy-time and Teacher-time — a bit precarious (sounds like me and Daddy-time) and so I am emailing off some friendly medication (strictly over the counter) and positive thoughts to get her through this rough patch and make her happy again:
“My day for the maximum dosage of Exedrin:
Trying to teach this quarter’s content while doing last minute test prep for the Big Important Test next week leaves me little time at my desk to give feedback on essays I collected 5 days ago, so you would think that I would dedicate time at home to catch up, but the remaining hours are required for mommy duties, including a visit to the health clinic so they can update their immunizations lest they be excluded from school starting Friday, so obviously I find no time to do anything well–and to top it off, an irate parent has the audacity to blame me and my colleagues because she trusted her teenage daughter and only RECENTLY started checking her grades online (our school considers that a direct line of communication between teachers and parents and has been using it for years), which we update weekly, only to discover that she was failing several classes, and although we did personally call and invite the mother to get involved in her daughter’s academics, she claims it wasn’t soon enough.” — Happychyk
MrC is going through the March syndrome: the month lasts too long. (Not sure if he meant hyphy or hyper but I left it as it was).
“It’s March: the kids are hyphy and I’m looking for a new job.” — MrC
And finally, my friend Bonnie, is contemplating the professional development work she does through her National Writing Project site.
“Friday’s HVWP event ended this week and many others that have come before, and it was worth it all.” — Bonnie
So, you may be thinking — I should have left my sentence! OK, Ok, go ahead, and use the comment feature here and leave your own. And then make sure you hop over to The Reflective Teacher and participate in the feature each week that it is offered. Remember, this is a community we’re building here.
Thanks for reading and for submitting your words.
Peace (with partnerships),
Kevin