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March Slice of Life Challenge #1

Posted in Blogging, Photography, Slice of Life, tagged graffiti, New Orleans City Park on March 1, 2017| 13 Comments »

Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for the Slice of Life Challenge.

Today is the first day of March, and I decided I would take the plunge once again into the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge. This will be my 6th year doing this daily writing challenge. My purpose is completely selfish. I want to continue my connection with the wonderful, kind, and intelligent community of Slice of Life. After 6 years, I’ve made friends. And we stay in touch with each other through our blog posts.

I have been writing long enough to know that writing every day is a discipline that builds my writing muscles. I will be writing for myself. I’m not saying that I am not aware of my audience. I am. But I rarely look at stats. I have to say I do get a charge when WordPress sends me a notification “Your stats are soaring!” Who wouldn’t?

I begin today with a photo essay of a walk in New Orleans City Park on Monday with my daughter and her dogs, Abby and Mabel. In this section of the park, there is an old concession stand. Who knows why it was built! There are no ball fields nearby, only walking trails. A sign in the stand told this tale:

The Coven Bar
Built by hand in 1854 by honorable member of L. Clamput Vitus, Mary Jones Thicklebrush. This bar was erected after she and her Bernese mountain dog, Helmut, rescued a drowning man from an alligator attack in the river behind it. May her bravery and her thick callused hands be remembered for all of time.

The Coven Bar, New Orleans City Park

A Google search turned up nothing about this “bar” or any of the names mentioned. It seems The Coven Bar is a gay bar in Berlin. But that’s all I got.

Graffiti covers the structure. A green Grinch-like hand holds a pink telephone with the quote, “You Go Girl!”

In my opinion, this graffiti is both ugly and beautiful. While set in the midst of nature, grassy fields, draping oaks, bouquets of palms, this structure turns my attention away from nature to the irony of artistic expression.

What is the message here?

Is there any meaning in the artwork or the bogus tale of its origins?

I don’t believe the purpose here is political, but I may be missing something. The painting is quite clever. I wonder if it has any connection to the tale about Mary Jones Thicklebush.

We continued on our walk. Abby and Mabel both enjoyed off leash time sniffing, running, and meeting other dogs. (Abby is in the photo below. Mabel is much larger and still young so she was too fast to capture.)

This Slice of Life challenge makes me pay more attention. I look at the day to day and ask questions, wonder, write randomly. Some days I may come to some wisdom, but today is not one of them. Some days there are no answers, only questions.

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DigiLitSunday: Learning from Each Other

Posted in Blogging, Digital Learning, Slice of Life, Teaching, tagged Slice of Life, student blogging on September 18, 2016| 5 Comments »

Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts

Lani watches a video about solar storms on Wonderopolis.

Yesterday I made the biggest mistake of my life. I went outside in a big, fat LIGHTNING STORM! I almost got struck by lightning too! (Kids, just don’t make my life choices.) It all started in Breaux Bridge…

I went to Dixie RV ”Super Store” to shop for a vacation RV. Out of the crystal blue sky fell a raindrop. It started drizzling. (I don’t know How it was possible, when all the clouds were pearly white.)

In a matter of SECONDS it started raining in like the flood was back. The ditches were filling up in 0.2 seconds. Then, the lightning started acting like stupid Angry Birds and I was the little Piggie with a phone as an egg. To make matters worse, Dixie RV has to be rich and have golf carts to ride around in the windy rain. While the rain was blowing in my face I noticed a tragedy. My phone was getting wet! I screamed in my mind so loud that I am sure everyone heard me.

I got out of the golf cart and a lighting strike was about 2 inches from meeting my face! I screamed to the gods and cried of scaredness. Hey! You would cry too! Guarantee!!! That experience has taught me a very important lesson: NEVER GO OUT IN A LIGHTNING STORM! BAD IDEA!!!!

Slice of Life by Lani (5th grade)

Every week my students write a Slice of Life on our class kidblog site, Mrs. Simon’s Sea. With digital tools such as grammarly, edit, copy, paste, etc., they can successfully post a small piece of their lives. Some of my students, like Lani, write these with ease. Lani sees the drama in everyday life.

I used the above slice as a mentor text this week. I wanted my students to notice how a small moment can be big. I wanted them to identify craft moves to emulate. So I asked them, “What do you notice?” We made a list.

All caps used to show emphasis.
exaggeration (hyperbole) that creates interest.
paragraph structure
ellipses…
parenthetical statement (adds voice)
imagery “crystal blue sky” and “pearly white clouds”
simile (metaphor)

Madison tried it out.

Two NIGHTS ago there was a LITERAL LIGHTNING STORM!!!! It all started on my way to Olive Garden…..

We were just on the highway out of my cousins trailer park and when I was looking out of the window and then there was huge flash of lightning and another and they scared me, but, atleast they stayed in the clouds!

After a few minutes, when I was looking out of the front window, there was a HUGE flash of lightning and I practically jumped out of my seat, and since the sky was so black that you couldn’t see the clouds, I was really scared!(It was scary since you couldn’t see where the lightning was going to come from.)

Slice of Life by Madison (3rd grade)

Drafting and revising a weekly slice gives my students practice in writing long about a small moment, a chance to try out craft moves, and a platform for their own voice. For me, when my students compose digitally, I am able to easily grab mentor texts for lessons. I can hold up my students as examples. I can shine a light on good writing.

Join the conversation by leaving your link.

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DigiLitSunday and Celebrating all in one

Posted in Blogging, Celebration Saturday, Digital Learning, Teaching, tagged #clmooc, Animoto, research, snail mail, Wonderopolis on September 4, 2016| 10 Comments »

Find more celebration posts at Ruth’s blog.

I missed the Saturday Celebration post, so I am double-dipping today.

I want to celebrate good old-fashioned snail mail. This week I received the invitation to my daughter’s wedding (coming up very soon on Oct. 1st), a #clmooc postcard from Karen Fasimpaur (she tells me she lived and taught in Tanzania?!), and a poetry exchange card from Joy Acey (make that 2 cards from Joy: the heart and the zebras.)

I celebrate the connections I have made through this blogging adventure that encourages me daily.

Today is #DigiLitSunday. I tweeted out the topic of #motivation. This year is my tenth year teaching young gifted students. I have redefined my role of teacher from someone who imparts knowledge to someone who motivates learning. My students are way smarter than I am when it comes to a measurement of intelligence. I am ineffective if I stand before them and tell them what to do. It just doesn’t work.

I have learned the art of motivation. And technology has been right beside me. I love Animoto for its immediate access to cool designs and background music for video production. I turned to Animoto this week to motivate my students to explore Wonders on Wonderopolis and to practice creating a thesis statement.

My students were motivated by choice as well. Many of them find interest areas through their reading. I Survived has become a favorite series. Andrew wanted to know more about tsunamis after reading I Survived the Japanese Tsunami. He watched videos, read a Wonderopolis post, and then branched out to search further questions.

https://animoto.com/play/n3d0IBO9cYPBika3Qvpsbw

Kaiden was inspired to learn about club foot from the book The War that Saved my Life.

https://animoto.com/play/Zg4LoPd9OK0ic8DUZw003w

Some students were motivated by watching each other’s videos. Jacob decided to research earthquakes after seeing Andrew’s video about tsunamis. (Andrew and Jacob attend different schools, but they keep in touch on our Kidblog site.)

https://animoto.com/play/1HeO0cLG9UzW2zyqIqT0Ow

Motivation can come from me, the teacher, from other students, or from books, and even from conversations. I went to Tanzania, Africa this summer and was chatting with Lynzee about the giraffes I saw. She wanted to know why giraffes have such long necks. Wonderopolis answered her question. Here is her video.

https://animoto.com/play/tDObOEEkWmOjbf1162Gzew

Obviously, I had a hard time choosing which video to share with you. Another cool aspect of teaching with choice and technology is the variety of projects that are produced. My students can now learn from each other as we post each video on our Kidblog site.

Please share your motivating #DigiLitSunday posts here.

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DigiLitSunday: Digital Voice

Posted in Blogging, Digital Learning, Teaching, Writing, tagged authentic voice, classroom blogging, Great Flood of 2016 on August 21, 2016| 10 Comments »

Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts

What is voice in digital writing? We know it when we see it, but it’s difficult to define. In one sense, everyone has a voice, right? So shouldn’t every piece of writing have a voice?

However, we’ve all read things that touch us in a certain way. We feel like the writer is speaking right into our ears. The writer is with us all along the way.

Yesterday I had the privilege to see many wonderful authors at the Mississippi Book Festival in my home town of Jackson, MS. I’ll write more about this great day later this week. Kate DiCamillo told me (yes, me because I got up the courage to ask her a question.) that the voice of the narrator in The Tale of Despereaux carried her through the writing of the novel, and this voice carries the reader through as well.

Voice is elusive and difficult to teach. Actually, I don’t think voice can be taught. Voice needs to be discovered. My students discover voice by writing a Slice of Life every week. By writing about something personal, their personalities appear on the page. They post their Slices on our class blog at Kidblog. (Click here if you would like to follow our blog.)

This week we only had a few days together because of the extensive rain and flooding in our area. When we met on Wednesday, my kiddos were full of stories about the flooding. Jacob’s house was flooded, and he was excited that he could write about it. He wrote three and a half pages in his notebook. Others went directly to the blog to write.

Lynzee’s voice comes through in her poem.

Fearsome Flood

Half the yard gone,
Bayou is swollen,
Stranded in the house,
Some in shelters,
People afraid
Of the
Fearsome flood

And Tobie is, well, always Tobie on the page.

When my sister and I were getting dressed, we turned on the news as always, but this time, there were no commercials, no GMA, only local news. We watched a bit, getting dressed, when all of a sudden, it smacked us right in the face. We dropped dead, got buried, and stayed there until we rose as zombies. Okay, maybe I exaggerated, but we were pretty shocked. By the fact that… “Iberia Parish schools are closed,” said Dave Baker. I asked my mom what that meant, but on the inside, I knew. NO SCHOOL!! But that is bad because, well, it must be pretty bad to cancel school. For like, 4 days.

Digital writing makes an unique voice more possible. Daily blogging allows students to discover their own voices and to share that voice with others. My students are having conversations with each other. I am not the only one they are writing for. An authentic audience offers my writers a reason to write and a pathway for discovery.

Please join the conversation by posting a link to your unique voice, your own blog. Tweet at #DigiLitSunday. Google+ community here.

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Slice of Life: Lagniappe

Posted in Blogging, Digital Learning, Gratitude, Slice of Life, tagged DigiLit Sunday, Digital photography, Katherine Bomer, lagniappe on August 2, 2016| 20 Comments »

Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for the Slice of Life Challenge.

In Louisiana, the term Lagniappe (pronounced lahn-yahp) means a little something extra. Imagine my surprise when my colleague told me that we start school on Wednesday, not Tuesday. I have a whole extra day of summer! Lagniappe!

Lagniappe is taking a break in the shade when the temperatures rise.

Lagniappe is a roseate spoonbill fishing by the roadside.

Lagniappe is goldfish glittering on top.

Lagniappe is finding old treasures.

This name plate was a gift from my supervising teacher when I was student teaching. I wasn’t Mrs. Simon yet, but I would be by the time I had my own classroom. This gift meant so much to me. I’d forgotten how much until I found it. I’ve always preferred to be called Mrs. Simon rather than Miss Margaret, as some teachers in the south do. I think this preference stems from my pride in being Mr. Simon’s wife. Our 34th anniversary is this weekend, and we will be dancing the night away.

Lagniappe is the Wonder quote app which speaks to me today.

(more…)

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Slice of Farm Life

Posted in Blogging, Slice of Life, Travel, Writing, tagged farm, NY, Slice of Life, Tara Smith, Washington County on July 19, 2016| 15 Comments »

Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for the Slice of Life Challenge.

I don’t know how I have come to be so blessed. If you’ve been keeping up with my blog or Facebook posts, you know I spent two weeks in Tanzania, Africa, a gift from my amazing mother-in-law. And today, I am in upstate New York at Tara Smith’s farm. Like Tanzania, the nights and mornings are cool, and that alone is reason to leave South Louisiana in the mid-summer. Unlike Tanzania, this place is lush and hilly and green.

On the farm, I can breathe slowly. I feel an energy for just being present. Tara is a perfect hostess. She ran down the hill from her writing spot five minutes ago because I asked for a lap blanket. Our dinner was fresh and delicious beginning with Caprese salad and ending with sliced watermelon. This morning, blueberry pancakes, my favorite.

I was trying to remember how I got here. Not in a geographical sense, but when did I meet and become so attached to these friends? I am here with Tara, Julianne, and Kimberley. (They are each writing a post today about our time together.) The fact is I can trace each friend back to this very space, my blog. We met through a commitment to writing and sharing our lives with each other. Connections happen here that I do not plan or predict or that I even realize are happening until a day like today.

Julianne traveled from L.A. and I traveled from LA. to be together on a hill in Washington County, NY.

This is Tara’s house on the farm. It is as lovely and charming on the inside as you can see from the outside. I am back in time to a place of stillness and grace.

This is Sophie. Every farm needs a dog like Sophie, keeping watch and providing comfort.

The four of us are taking a break from talking to write our separate slices. Sharing our slices of life is what brought us all here to be present with each other, to make space for writing, and to enjoy the abundance of life. I am so grateful for Tara’s generosity, for this community of writers, and for this amazing gift of nature. I can believe the world is good. I can feel hope. I can be me.

Morning walk in the woods.

gentle moon

rising over the hills

abiding grace

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DigiLit Sunday: Sharing our Lives

Posted in Blogging, Digital Learning, Teaching, Writing, tagged essay writing, Katherine Bomer, Notebook Time, writer's notebooks on June 12, 2016| 6 Comments »

Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts

Into every day,
a cloud must come.
Here’s hoping all your clouds
are this filled with light.

How often do you post on social media? Once a day? Once a week? Occasionally?

I am curious about what makes us connect and why some share more than others. And when I read a post, on Facebook or Twitter, who am I really seeing?

If I am honest, I am a pretty free sharer of my life. I probably post at least once a day on Facebook. I’m not as active on Twitter or Instagram, but I have a presence there. And then there’s this blog right here.

I am partial to my blogging space. I feel safe here. I open the draft and spill out onto the page whatever is on my mind.

I’ve been reading Katherine Bomer’s book The Journey is Everything: Teaching Essays That Students Want to Write for People Who Want to Read Them. In Chapter 4, Living Like an Essayist, Katherine makes a case for the Writer’s Notebook as a place to think and generate ideas. While I am determined to give this a good shot next school year, trying it out myself was not easy. I have gotten better and better at typing and backspacing, type, delete, copy, paste, highlight, spellcheck.

The notebook has lost some of its usefulness to me, at least for writing rough drafts. I still take notes in a notebook and apparently this is good for my brain. NPR posted an article about the advantages of hand-written notes in college. But unless I need those notes for something I am writing, they get lost in the pages of my notebook.

From this chapter, I gleaned five ways to make use of notebook time. (I think I’ll call it Notebook Time in my classroom.)

Write daily for 12-15 minutes: Free writing that may lead to a good essay topic.
A thinking space for slow pondering, not rushing toward an end product.
Share notebook writing with a partner or small group. Reading aloud what you have written can validate or deepen thinking.
Writing leads to more writing. Ideas lead to ideas. Allow for this free range thinking time.
Write what is true. This space should be used to explore the deep dark corners of our lives. Shake it all out. Don’t write only what makes you look good. Be authentic on the page.

I truly believe in sharing our lives. By putting our true selves out there, we can find connections in new and exciting ways. As I read and think about what I want for my students, I am more convinced that writing your truth makes you a stronger person, reaches out to others, and creates a caring world community.

DigiLit Sunday will be on hiatus for the next 6 weeks as I will be traveling. We will be back on July 31st. Have a wonderful summer!

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DigiLit Sunday: Refresh

Posted in Blogging, Digital Learning, Gifted Education, tagged digital literacy, Kidblog, student blogging on May 15, 2016| 9 Comments »

Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts

I have three days left of school. That statement gets stuck in my throat. I’m not ready. In my position as a gifted teacher, I have the privilege of teaching my students year after year. But the sixth graders move on to middle school. This will be a week of goodbyes.

My students wrote their final blog posts for the year. Our space on Kidblog has become a meaningful, safe place for writing. I asked a 5th grader last week to do a graph of our blog posts this year. The most blog posts went to 6th grader, Kielan, with 139! We’ve written a total of 1121 posts this year!

Here is a sample of a few goodbye posts. I am proud to read that they feel like writers.

Sorry everyone, but this is the last week of GT. Soak it in while you can. Good-bye blankets, read aloud, parties, and GT and Mrs. Simon in general.

We have all learned so much from past writings to now. We have learned grammar (by force, AKA Grammarly), we have learned phrases and metaphors and similes, we have learned everything a poet and writer must know in life. Tobie

Today is the last day of Gt and I will miss Mrs. Simon and GT. I have learned many new forms of poems, like Abecedarian and Diamante. What I will hate about summer is summer reading. I will miss all the art projects and the forts and the pillows and read aloud, but I will not miss the Sol’s. Andrew

This site has let me talk to Mrs.Simon about problems that I had when I couldn’t talk to her face to face. This site has given me ideas from my classmates and connections. This site has let me share my life story with the world. This site has made me who I am today. This site has let me give ideas to my classmates and connections. This site has made my day or made me want to scream. But this site has so many memories that I hold so close to my heart. Erin

It is time to hit the refresh button, time for winding down, relaxing, reading, and reflecting. I have books ready for my summer reading. Here are a few of the books I’ve got waiting for me.

How will you hit the refresh button? Please join our conversation by leaving your blog link below.

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SOL 16: #8 Treasure Box

Posted in Blogging, Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged object writing, treasure box, writing prompts on March 8, 2016| 13 Comments »

Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for March Slice of Life Challenge.

Julianne gave me an idea. She told me about an idea she heard from Cornelius Minor about making a box of items to prompt writing. She posted about her treasure box yesterday. Click here.

I started with a box from Tiny Prints (Our Christmas cards came in this box.)

I gathered Mod Podge, scissors, a sponge brush, and some papers that I had already gel printed. You could use any kind of decorated paper. I’ve been wanting to find some way to use my gel printed paper.

Step one: Cover the box with decorated paper. I like the way Modge Podge paints on so you have fewer wrinkles.

Step one: Cover the box with decorated paper. I like the way Mod Podge paints on so you have fewer wrinkles.

I continued to layer until the design pleased me. I found a postcard from Irene Latham that said “Live your Poem” and put that on the top. I labeled the box “Writing Treasures.”

Completed box. I thread a colorful ribbon through a hole to make a decorative pull.

Here is a collection of items I found around my house.

Inside the box, I placed found items. These items could be anything that fits. A rock, a peacock feather, a poem, a wooden whistle, a ceramic turtle, a message in a bottle, pretty cards, magnifying glass, a shell, etc.

My students were able to dig around and find an item to prompt their writing. I told them it could lead you to a memory, a poem, or a wonder.

I am really working hard this year to keep our writing momentum going. Last week it was the badges. This week a treasure box. Do you have any more ideas to inspire writing?

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SOL16: #5 Celebrating Badges

Posted in Blogging, Celebration Saturday, Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged badges, Slice of Life Classroom Challenge on March 5, 2016| 17 Comments »

Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for March Slice of Life Challenge.

Stacey Shubitz, the fearless leader of the Slice of Life Challenge designed badges for our students who are doing this work of writing a blog post every day. I was looking for something to motivate them. My students come back to me year after year, so some of them have done this slicing before, and they were gasping, “Ugh. No. Not again!”

And here comes Kathleen Sokowolski, another brave teacher on the Two Writing Teachers team, sharing pages of badges in Google docs. She also made a Picassa Gallery for sharing the badges. Click here.

I showed the badges to my students on Monday and told them they could make a chart to mount them on. I opened up the art supply cabinet. Some made charts. Some made booklets. And one of my students made a bucket out of construction paper that hangs in her cubby. They were primed, ready, motivated.

As the week went on, we found other things we needed a badge for. On Tuesday, one of my younger kids, a 3rd grader, got his slice done along with commenting and had free time. I announced, “Andrew is the super student of the day!”

“We need a badge for that!” Emily opened up Canva and created this badge. And also a badge for me, how sweet, Super Teacher of the Day.

One of my students wrote a slice of 612 words. He’s only in 2nd grade, but he had a lot to say about his field trip. I told my students that the slice needed to be at least 200 words. We needed a badge for writing more than 300 words. Here it is!

Lani made this badge on Canva.

I also noticed that some of my students were writing outside of class. There’s a badge for that!

I’m not sure how many more badges we will come up with. They may lose motivation for the badges by mid-March, and we will need to find a new way to encourage and cheer for Slice of Life writing, but for this first week, badges are gold!

Thanks, Kathleen and Stacey.