Slice of Life | Reflections on the Teche

Archive for the ‘Slice of Life’ Category

Testing Timer of Oz

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Teaching, tagged Greg Armamentos, PARCC timer, students, testing, Wizard of Oz on March 10, 2015| 12 Comments »

SOL #10

This post lifts a line from Greg Armamentos. He wrote this most wonderfully expressed lament over PARCC testing.

Before we jam thermometers

into students

to measure

their current temperature,

Before we dig up

the seed we planted

to see if it is growing,

We must set the timer,

But not any timer.

Computers must be off.

Cell phones must be locked up.

No ticks or rings.

No sound but the deep breaths

of our students in the pressure cooker.

The district gives permission, my pretty,

to use the Promethean timer.

Does the great and powerful district know

that the Smart board has no brains of its own,

let alone a heart?

–Margaret Simon

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Overlooked

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing on March 9, 2015| 13 Comments »

SOL #9

This week’s photo challenge on Kim Douillard’s site is Overlooked. I had this word in mind as I drove to exercise on Friday morning. The full moon was still out while the sun was rising. The road to the gym was blocked. I was already late, so I decided to take some photos instead. I made them into an Animoto video.

Then I read Michelle Hendrick Barnes’ post on Poetry Friday. An interview with one of my favorite authors, Margarita Engle. Margarita’s ditty challenge was tied to her new book Orangutanka, a story of orangutans in tanka poems. The challenge: write a tanka, a form with a syllable count of 5,7,5,7,7. Then I looked at Heidi Mordhorst’s March poetry project and today’s word is preaCH. Could I work the two challenges together?

Sun overlooks
blessing a lonely smoke stack.
Coulee wildflowers
preach yellow sonnets
while moon graces morning clouds.

–Margaret Simon

I sent my tanka to Michelle and Heidi, so they are posting it today. Three times lucky!

My Juicy Little Universe

Today’s Little Ditty

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Found Poems and Book Talks

Posted in Digital Learning, Gifted Education, Poetry, Slice of Life, tagged Animoto, book talks, Emaze, found poem, PowerPoint, PowToon on March 8, 2015| 14 Comments »

SOL #8

In addition to joining the Slice of Life Challenge at the Two Writing Teachers blog, I have committed to hosting a DigiLit Sunday round up each week. If this is your first time here, consider joining us on Sundays. I love reading about all the new tools available for students and how teachers are using them. Use the button below on your site.

Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts

This week was the last of our third nine weeks. How this year is flying! My students do a book talk presentation each quarter, so this was the week to get them done. I love how the room buzzes with computer activity and how talk revolves around books. I added a new requirement this quarter: found poems. These were their instructions:

1. Find a section of 50-100 words. This may be your favorite part or the climax or a part with a good description.

2. Copy words or phrases from the section.

3. Rewrite or type as a poem. Notice line breaks. You may change the order or add words only if necessary to add meaning.

4. Check your poem for tone. Does it reflect the tone of the book?

My students choose the technology they wanted to use for their presentations. Some used Emaze, Powtoon, Animoto, or PowerPoint. Some used the technology to guide their talks. Other used it as a hook or to enhance the presentation.

I want to share some of the found poems, a Powtoon, and an Animoto trailer.

Vannisa used chapter epigraphs from Counting by 7's. Each phrase connects to the character in some way.

Vannisa used chapter quotes from Counting by 7’s. Each phrase connects to the character in some way.

Tobie wrote this poem from the Halloween chapter in Wonder. He could relate to the black hole August wanted to go into.

Matthew’s Animoto book trailer for Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library.

Mission Impossible is a favorite background. Tobie used it to create this Powtoon presentation about Wonder.

Digital Learning Day is on March 13th. My plan is a Crazy Comment Challenge in which my students will try to write as many comments as possible on other SOL posts. Please consider joining us. More about Digital Learning Day can be found here. Use the hashtag #DLDay, #sol15, and #crazycomments in your Tweets.

If you have written a Digital Literacy post, please add your link in the comments. I will add them to this post. I am having some trouble with link up apps lately, so I’m just using the old fashioned way.

Cathy Mere struggles with teaching students about copyright when using photos. Tough lesson for us all. http://reflectandrefine.blogspot.com/2015/03/digilit-sunday-helping-students-with.html

Julie Johnson writes about using apps with her after school digital writing group. http://www.raisingreadersandwriters.com/

Tara Smith writes about teaching resources for Selma. https://ateachinglifedotcom.wordpress.com/2015/03/08/sol15-march-8-2015-living-history-commemorating-the-march-on-selma/ “Teaching the events of Selma empowers our students with what the President called, “the imperative of citizenship”, which brave people like John Lewis have been willing to die for ever since we first became our nation.” Tara Smith

Holly wonders about the use of technology versus the way we grew up with limited TV channels and certainly no Internet. Join the conversation here: http://hollymueller.blogspot.com/2015/03/slice-of-life-story-challenge-what-i_8.html

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Celebrate March!

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Slice of Life, Teaching, tagged acrostic poetry, chalkabration, Dr. Seuss on March 7, 2015| 15 Comments »

Ruth Ayres invites us the celebrate each week. Click over to her site Discover. Play. Build. to read more celebrations.

SOL #7

March has come in like a lion, and I have made it through the first week of the Slice of Life Challenge. Time to celebrate!

Some of my students missed Chalkabration last week. So we made winter acrostics. Lani, 3rd grade, says she’s not a poet and yet, she used the word metamorphosized!

Metamorphosized butterfly
Arrives vividly
Rising
Caterpillar
High flying.
by Lani

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss! This is our brave librarian who dressed up every day this week as one of Dr. Seuss’s characters. We had special days to celebrate, crazy socks, crazy hair, and mismatched.

Jacob’s mother teaches across the hall from me. She occasionally texts me things he says. This text is an all time winner! My heart swells!

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Adventure in Dance

Posted in Slice of Life, tagged dance, Feed-n-Seed, Stop the Clock, Texas swing on March 5, 2015| 11 Comments »

SOL #5

Click here to read more inspirational posts.

Today is Day 5 of the Slice of Life Challenge at the Two Writing Teachers blog. I am cross posting this for Holly Mueller’s Spiritual Thursday round up. There we are writing each week about another blogger’s one little word. This week is Libby’s word Adventure.

My OLW is Reach. Much like the word Adventure, it leads to something new, coming out of your comfort zone, and being open to what may lie ahead.

My husband and I are workaholics. It’s part of our DNA. Together we raised three daughters. This took up a lot of time, and so did our jobs. When we became empty nesters, I took on National Boards. The process was one of growth and reflection; however, it did nothing to build a stronger relationship with my husband.

In 2010, at his suggestion, I gave Jeff dancing lessons for Christmas. He wanted us to have something special together. Together we wanted to enjoy the Cajun/Creole culture more. After that first round of lessons, we signed on for group lessons. We’ve been going every Wednesday night since (except one period of time when I was recovering from an ankle injury.)Even though we’ve been dancing for 4 years now, we still learn something new every week.

We are more open to new musical adventures. We recently discovered some fun local music. On the first Sunday of every month, a Western swing band plays at the Feed-n-Seed. This band is made up of ten musicians, most of whom are in other bands. They are the best musicians around. They do this just for the love of it. No one is making any money. You can feel the love in the room.

We haven’t learned any swing moves, so we just dance the jitterbug and two-step. Energy is high. Everyone wears smiles. Reaching for adventure is taking a step away from the usual, embracing your partner, and two-stepping through life.

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Left-handed Rhythm

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, tagged djembe, Jack, Laura Shovan, Sound poetry on March 4, 2015| 8 Comments »

SOL #4

I have met many wonderful and creative people through blogging. A few years ago I joined the Poetry Friday round up. Poetry is a passion of mine. I use poetry often in my classroom, and I enjoy writing it. And who doesn’t love a good challenge? So when Laura Shovan posted her February Birthday Challenge, I took part. She posted sounds as poetry prompts. Turns out 14 of us wrote 177 poems to 28 sounds. Pretty impressive.

One of the sounds we wrote about was an electric guitar which reminded me of playing Guitar Hero with my nephew and getting beaten badly. Apparently, Jack has impeccable rhythm. Last summer, he started taking drumming lessons. He got a djembe for Christmas. I didn’t really know about his djembe playing until my sister posted a video of him from their California vacation. (My talented trumpet playing niece was marching with her band in the Rose Bowl parade.)

Musical talent runs in my family. In the dining room of my parents’ home is a life-sized portrait of my grandmother with her violin. My mother has her masters in piano and taught lessons in our home for many years. My brother has the gene, too. (We say it’s in the left hand as they are all left-handed.) Hunter is a professional musician. He plays keyboard and sings solo or with a band most nights of the week. So it was inevitable that someone would inherit the talent.

My sister says Jack’s rhythm is innate. He danced to the beat of her tapping a cinnamon container at 18 months. She remembers Mom telling a similar story about our brother who danced to the rhythm of her stirring cake batter.

Laura’s challenge pushed me to add a poem to the video. Here is Jack playing the djembe wowing the crowds at Santa Monica pier. My poem runs in the ticker tape at the bottom.

When I played Guitar Hero,

beat on a fake guitar

sent light waves to a TV screen,

the cartoon me danced in time,

but I missed the beat.

Not Jack

He is the guitar hero.

A natural born rock star

The beat is in the palms of his hands

drumming the djembe–

a ten-year-old marvel.

–Margaret Simon

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Books that make you Cry

Posted in Slice of Life, Writing, tagged Donalyn Miller, Kwame Alexander, sad books, The Crossover, The Nerdy Book Club on March 3, 2015| 25 Comments »

SOL #3

Recently one of my mentors, Donalyn Miller, presented a two part post on The Nerdy Book Club about books that make us cry and why we love them. I lost my self-consciousness about this years ago while reading aloud Charlotte’s Web for the umpteenth time and crying once again. I decided it was OK for my students to see me tear up.

Some of you may know about my student Emily. She is a fourth grader whose mother died unexpectedly this fall. I wrote about her here and here. She has been reluctant ever since to read sad books. She gave up on Love that Dog when she read that the dog died. She gravitated to funny books like Flora and Ulysses and Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

I have been reading The Crossover aloud in my classroom ever since it won the Newbery Award. My boys went crazy over it, hooting and cheering. No other read aloud has brought on so much enthusiasm. They begged for more. The book makes a wonderful read aloud with its rhythmic verse and creativity of language.

When I found out from a friend that there was a (spoiler alert!) death, I became worried about Emily. Should I stop reading? I didn’t think they would let me. I tried to skip a few days, but I knew I would have to keep reading. I tried to buy the book at Barnes and Noble thinking I could just let them pass it around, but it was not to be found. All out on Amazon, too. The only way to finish Crossover was to keep reading it from my iPhone Kindle app.

I decided to just confront Emily with the truth. I called her aside privately. (Actually, she visits me every recess, so that wasn’t hard.) I told her the truth about the book. I asked her permission to keep reading. I told her if she got upset, she could leave the room.

Today was the day. 88% left. Emily knew this would be the day. She was prepared. In the cabinet she had hidden a sign, “RIP Chuck ‘Da Man’ Bell.” She sat close to me, so when I choked and couldn’t get the words out, she read them. The boys were silent. It was a profound moment. As Kwame Alexander wrote in Basketball Rule #10,

A loss is inevitable,
like snow in winter.
True champions
learn
to dance
through
the storm.

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Reading like a Writer

Posted in Slice of Life, Writing, tagged Augusta Scattergood, It's Monday: What are you Reading? on March 2, 2015| 21 Comments »

SOL #2

Join the IMWAYR meme.

I am a writer. This takes courage to say, and dedication to make it true. I have been working on a middle grade novel for a while. I started it in Teachers Write in 2012. If you are a teacher who writes, put this on your list of summer activities. Led by Kate Messner and featuring many wonderful authors, it’s the best writing camp ever.

So now that I am writing, my reading is pretty much confined to middle grade novels. This week I read Augusta Scattergood’s newest novel, The Way to Stay in Destiny. I had the pleasure of meeting Augusta at NCTE in the fall. We were fast friends. We made an easy connection since we both grew up in Mississippi, and we have people in common. The south is all about who’s your momma, who’s your daddy. Nevertheless, her books are as friendly as she is.

I had a favorite great aunt who we all called Sister, so I was particularly drawn to the character of Miss Sister. Miss Sister runs the Rest Easy (and a dance studio) where Theo is staying with his uncle, a Vietnam veteran. Miss Sister finds talent in Theo and encourages his piano playing. Theo’s uncle is full of anger that Theo’s piano playing exacerbates. Eventually, the uncle works through his anger, thank goodness, and comes to love Theo.

You can find an interview with Augusta Scattergood at Caroline Starr Rose’s blog here.

As a writer, I noticed some things about Augusta’s writing. In each chapter she includes inner thinking by the main character. This inner thinking keeps the reader on track by giving you a semi-synopsis from Theo’s head.

After school the next day, I sit on the Rest Easy’s front porch glider waiting for Anabel. Pushing away what my uncle said about moving, about my name, and about my parents, I stare at the heat rippling off the street. It’s hard not to turn into a sweat ball in Florida. (Ch. 13, p. 82)

After noticing this again and again, I went to my work in progress (WIP) to find a place that I could put in inner thinking/summarizing. Revision can be tedious, but when you are working with a book you like and using a technique you feel confident in, it becomes more like playing. How could I review the previous chapter in a natural way? Here’s my teaser from Sunshine.

Before we leave for Mae Mae’s house, I call Momma to do my daily check in. I tell her all about Sunshine’s new adopted egg, how Ms. Fullilove brought over a fertilized one from Mr. Jim, even about how Harmony will help tend to Sunshine, but I leave out the details about Harmony’s homelessness. I’m not sure yet what she might say. I think it best to tell her face-to-face.

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
― Stephen King

I am taking time to read more carefully, to be aware of what authors do to draw me in. I am reading like a writer.

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Ready to Slice Away in March

Posted in Digital Learning, Slice of Life, tagged blogging, Kidblog, Slice of Life, Two Writing Teachers on March 1, 2015| 33 Comments »

Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Here we go…first day of March. Time to begin a daily writing practice. The Slice of Life Challenge begins today!

This is my fourth year to join the challenge. When I first started, there were only two writing teachers at Two Writing Teachers, Stacey Shubitz and Ruth Ayres. Now there are six, Stacey, Beth, Betsy, Tara, Dana, and Anna. They make a pretty awesome team. At NCTE in November, I had the pleasure of meeting most of them. They are real people! That is the beauty of this blogging community. Everyone is real. We all support one another. We challenge each other. We engage each other.

If this is your first time, I understand totally how you feel. I still wake up at night wondering if what I wrote was junk, and nobody will like it. I still carry my phone with me all day checking my alerts for comments. That never gets old.

I volunteered to be a concierge for the classroom SOLC along with Linda Baie. (Linda is one of those blog commenters who keeps us all connected. I don’t know how she does it, but she’s been my top commenter for years. One day we will meet face to face.) Together we are here to help answer any questions you have about blogging with your class.

In my own classroom, I have set up a Kidblog site. I like this format, much like WordPress, and it allows my students to all post in a common area. I do not have to do any linking to an outside site. Anything that cuts out a step helps when posting daily. I have stored the SOL logo in my photo file, so I can attach it to every SOL slice.

With my students, I made two anchor charts: What is a Slice? and How to make a slice tasty. We will continue to add to these charts. They help my students verbalize their practice. I have set up incentives for different levels of accomplishment. For 15-20 slices, the student gets a pencil. For 21-26, a journal. And the grand prize is a book for 31 slices. I have only 12 students, so I am able to afford the prizes. Some teachers set up a celebration with food at the end of the month.

On Friday, March 13th, the Alliance for Excellence in Education sponsors a Digital Learning Day. On this day, consider joining me in a comment challenge. My students will be reading blogs like crazy and competing for a Crazy Commenter prize.

Here are a few things I have learned over the years about the Slice of Life Challenge:

Write a day or two ahead. Have some drafts ready just in case. I preach this better than I do it.
Add photos whenever possible. I try not to post anything without a visual. Something more than just the SOL logo. This appeals to the reader and gives you an anchor if you post to Facebook.
Don’t quit. Even if you miss a day or two, jump back in. The prizes are nice, but in the long run, the value is in the daily practice of writing.
Comment. This takes time, so you may want to set up a method. I usually click on the person above and below my name in the list. I also try to return comments to those who comment on my post.
Use your comments to connect to the writer. We make friends by making connections. I changed my tune this year with my students. I once told them to make a criticycle (a critique sandwiched with positive feedback.) Now I feel the connection is the most important thing.

I started this round-up for Digital Literacy. Here every Sunday, you can link their digital literacy posts. We learn from each other. Join in anytime. On Twitter, @MargaretGSimon, #k6digilit. Please leave your link in the comments and I will add to the post.

Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts

Cathy Mere writes about the growth of community through digital connections. http://reflectandrefine.blogspot.com/2015/03/digilit-sunday-growing-communities-in.html

Julianne slices about using podcasts to fuel writing. https://jarhartz.wordpress.com/2015/03/01/sol15-day-1-listening-love/

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Spreading the SOL Love

Posted in Blogging, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged #sol15, #TWTBlog, Bayou Warrior, Slice of Life Challenge on February 24, 2015| 9 Comments »

Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

I have been blogging since January, 2011. One discovery that has kept me going (teaching, writing, blogging) is the annual Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge in the month of March. This will be my 4th year taking the challenge along with my students. I am a believer in blogging. I have drunk the Kool-Aid.

I now have the best Professional Learning Community ever. These people are supportive of everything from surviving a bad day to winning awards. My cheering section is large. I want to spread the love.

Carolyn and I met about 5 years ago when we were both newbies in a school. Being a newbie can be uncomfortable, but Carolyn and I found each other and connected easily. Like minds, similar philosophies, everything to make for a lasting friendship.

Now Carolyn and I teach at different schools, but we try to have coffee every few weeks or so. Recently she was sitting in my kitchen looking at The New Yorker on the counter. She said, “You should submit a poem to this magazine.”

I said, “Yeah, right. In a million years.”

She said, “I challenge you!”

So I said, “I challenge you to start blogging and do the Slice of Life Challenge.”

She brought her laptop over on Monday, so I could show her a few pointers. “What should I write about?”

I said, “I don’t even know what I’m going to write about yet.”

Then we both cheered, because great minds think alike. We will write about each other!

Please welcome my friend Carolyn, the Bayou Warrior, to this amazing community. I know she will like it here.

I am truly humbled by her first post. Click here.