I arrive promptly—and by promptly I mean just in the nick of time—and everyone is in place for Sacred Writing.
Peggy introduces the journal topic which she pulled from Katie Wood Ray’s book The Writing Workshop: What texts have you or do you learn from? What do you learn?
And so we write for the prescribed time. Peggy continues to keep the length of our writing time a closely guarded secret and I forgot to estimate the actual amount of time we wrote. It seemed longer today, but that might have just been me.
Amy volunteered to be the first to share. She didn’t want to write about the topic no matter what the topic was, but through some twist of fortune the selected topic was exactly the topic she wanted to write about. Amy wrote that the book Writing for Insight reverberates for her. The alliteration gives her goose bumps. She feels the author’s concept of parallel approaches will transfer well to our demos. Amy is pleased that everyone in the group appears to be stretching their abilities at SI.
Bonnie was the next cruel victim of the sharing circle rotation. She also mentioned Writing for Insight and reflected on how it made her want to incorporate more writing instruction in her science class.
Heather pulls resources from everywhere and doesn’t feel bound to one text book. She feels teaching from a text is too confining.
Robin specifically mentioned Mrs. Fixit’s Guide to Home Repair and the works of William Shakespeare. She wrote that she learns something from all texts—from how to fix a leaky toilet to how to understand dual natures of mankind.
Melanie drank mojitos and ate flavored chips and got bored at a wedding went nuts at a Gymboree feels strongly about Dream Girls and found out that baby showers can be sad.
Sarah found wet boxes full of her reading texts mixed with empty cases of discarded beer bottles in the dumpster at her school.
Joseph appreciates the focused free writing of Elbow. He hopes to introduce Writing Down the Bones this year. He feels that films can be meaningful in the classroom and reflected on his own experiences watching Ghandi.
Marsha doesn’t feel any pressure to get it right the first time.
Jennifer wrote a pep talk to herself.
Kim enjoys the How to… manuals in the English Department library. She’s picked up some good ideas about how to get students to think of themselves as writers. She also feels that using conferencing helps her to treat her students as individuals.
Peggy likes to reflect on the central question of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in wake of a stressful school day. She likes to give herself the opportunity to kick back, sit quietly, and maybe have a little well deserved cry.
We broke into conversation momentarily about how some schools have banned Angelou and how Amy loves Dante.
Angela likes the book Seeking Diversity. She loves the student examples. She feels she learns by doing and listening and had some great insights during her Eddy Time.
Kathy loves Writing for Insightbut pulled a total Witherspoon in regards to Ray’s book. She says she finds grace and peace in the Bible.
I skipped like a coward.
I’ll allow Mike’s brutal eloquence to speak for itself. “Roses are red/Violets are blue/I don’t like this prompt/And neither do you.”
Greg likes the sense of freedom he found in Writing Down the Bones. He also learned the proper tip to give your waitress when writing in a diner.
Diana only reads romance novels from start to finish. Writers don’t write books from start to finish, why should she read them that way? She scans texts for bits of info to add to her boiling cauldron of ideas.
Dolores wondered how you could not learn from a text? She quotes all or parts of the books she’s read for SI to her children. She has learned to make writing a habit, like brushing your teeth.
Dolores then read back Friday’s ethnography and I enjoyed remembering our trip to the museum.
After break it was to the lab for Jennifer’s demo.
Amy introduced Jennifer and her demo topic “Are You Taking a Grade on This? Creating Authentic Learning in the Classroom.”
Jennifer told us the story of her accidental discovery of a journal topic her students loved: three things I wish my parents knew. In her quest to find out what the heck happened, she came across the concept of authentic learning. Authentic learning attempts to bring concepts to the learning process that the student can apply directly to their everyday life. Jennifer’s demo focused on a review of the history of learning in the classroom and how authentic learning fit into that continuum. She included several great handouts, resources, and activities to help us move our students towards an authentic learning experience. She even played us a snippet of (I believe) Brian Adams’ version of “Summer of ‘69,” so her demo was not short on entertainment. Personally, I was glad there wasn’t time to make us look in the mirrors.
Some of the group shared their experiences with authentic learning. Diana likes using the I Am poem. Amy has her students write a letter to themselves in five years. Then she keeps those letters for five whole years and actually mails them! Jennifer concluded her presentation with a question she’d like to answer about how to make her annual research assignment more authentic.
While Jennifer debriefed, we all went our separate ways to have Shop Talk in our writing and reading groups and compose our letters to Jennifer. We hashed over Jennifer’s demo through the lens of extensions and adaptability. We felt this was an extremely adaptable topic, so good job Jennifer.
After the letter was finished, it was lunch time. Dolores provided a delicious white bean chili and even brought the recipe, which I thought was a particularly nice touch.
After lunch, we split up once again into our writing and reading groups. In our group, Heather and Kathy shared pieces they were working on and we all shared our opinions. Then Diana answered some of our questions and tried to allay our e-portfolio fretting.
Third Space followed a quick jaunt over to the library where the pleasant Mr. Balch introduced us to the Marshall University library system’s online resources. We explored the process for searching journal and book catalogs with resources available online, on campus, and through interlibrary loan. We practiced searching and found resources for topics ranging from Peter Pan to differentiated instruction. Mr. Balch’s demonstration was interesting, but I kept getting distracted by the library’s virtual museum. They have an archive of photographs from the 1937 flood in Huntington and the Buffalo Creek disaster. It’s definitely worth checking out.
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