Laura Purdie Salas | Reflections on the Teche

Posts Tagged ‘Laura Purdie Salas’

This I Believe

Posted in Chalk-a-bration, Slice of Life, Spiritual Growth, Writing, tagged Betsy Hubbard, chalkabration, I believe, Laura Purdie Salas, nonfiction rhyming poetry on March 31, 2014| 6 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 31. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.
Audrey Hepburn

On Sunday, Patricia Pollacco posted this quote from Audrey Hepburn on Facebook. I took it on as a writing prompt for my last Slice of Life. I wrote 31 posts in 31 days, writing everyday and joining an amazing community of teacher-writers. The month has flown by. My students have loved this month of writing, too. Recently I overheard one student saying to another, “I can write about anything!” What a wonderful feeling! Please visit my class blog, Slice of Life Challenge, as they write their final slices and reflect on what this month has meant to them.

I believe flowers make the world more beautiful.
I believe every one can be creative.
I believe God is inside each one of us.
I believe the only way we can solve the world’s problems is through kindness.
I believe I may be one person, but to someone I may be the only one.
I believe we must pay attention. Listen. Be aware.
I believe when one door closes, another opens, and that we must be diligent in finding the open door.
I believe there are miracles every day.

Join the Chalk-a-bration over at Teaching Young Writers.

And now for Chalkabration! The end of the month Betsy Hubbard gathers teacher-writers who celebrate writing with chalk. Friday was a rainy day, so we stayed inside and wrote on our portable chalk paper. Partners worked together on nonfiction rhyming poems as inspired by Laura Purdie Salas’s Wednesday Workout.

They are cute
like a bamboo shoot
Can they play a flute?
They come in many shapes,
even grapes.
Can you guess our _____
They are fruit. Tyler and Kendall

Look upon this lovely sunset
The moon has not risen yet.
Earth and sun in perfect duet.
Look upon this lovely sunset. Brooke and Vannisa

Mesmerizing clouds of iridescence
Inky black plumage of brilliance
Dark plump birds in coexistence
Nature’s way of perfect balance. Kaylie and Matthew

The above poem was written about a YouTube video we viewed about starling murmurations.

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DigiLit Sunday: YouTube or not?

Posted in Digital Learning, Slice of Life, Teaching, tagged digital literacy, Laura Purdie Salas, nonfiction rhyming poetry, starling murmurations, YouTube on March 30, 2014| 10 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 30. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts

Do you YouTube? I was pleased when our district opened the site this year. We are using a new Common Core Standards aligned curriculum that depends on YouTube videos for instruction. This can be a dangerous thing. Especially when you forget that restrictions have been lifted and allow students to look up a Christina Aguilera song. Whoopsie! Naked woman! Click off! Yes, this happened, but thankfully no body parts were revealed and the kids all understood that it was inappropriate for school. Whew! Try again.

Now I am very cautious and preview whatever we watch. This week a friend on Facebook posted an amazing video of starling murmurations. Amazing! We watched this to have a brain vacation, as one of my students called it. This was almost a spiritual experience, such beauty, a miracle shared. Shortly after our brain vacation, we wrote nonfiction rhyming poems. I used Laura Purdie Salas’ lesson from Teaching Authors. This was a collaborative piece that Kaylie and Matthew wrote.

Starling Birds

Mesmerizing clouds of iridescence

Inky black plumage of brilliance

Dark plump birds in coexistence

Nature’s way of perfect balance

–a collaborative poem by Kaylie and Matthew

Please link up your Digital Literacy post today.

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Bougainvillea

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, tagged Laura Purdie Salas, nonfiction rhyming poetry, Teaching Authors on March 27, 2014| 6 Comments »

Slice of Life Day 27. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

I was suffering with severe “noideaitis,” a term created by my student Magic Matt. So I traveled around the kitlit blogosphere for inspiration. I found some at the site Teaching Authors. I follow Laura Purdis Salas on her blog, and she has just recently joined the Teaching Authors. Her Wednesday Writing Workout post outlined a process for writing a rhyming nonfiction poem. I gave it a shot. Recently I bought some new spring flowers for my deck. One of these is a bougainvillea. I just love saying the name. I looked it up on Wikipedia and learned all I needed to know to write a quick poem. As Laura suggested, I used Rhymezone to find rhyming words. I don’t think the results are brilliant, but they do teach a bit about this mouthful of a plant.

The actual flower of the bougainvillea is a small cluster of three white flowers in the center.

Bougainvillea

Bougainvillea is a thorny, ornamental vine.
From Brazil or Peru, paper petals intertwine.

The actual flower will fool ya’
hiding white in the bracts of Bougainvillea.

Each heart-shaped leaf steadily climbs.
Don’t you want to say it three times?

Bougainvillea
Bougainvillea
Bougainvillea

Red bougainvillea on my deck looking all perky and springy.

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Nerdlution Week #3

Posted in Blogging, Poetry, Writing, tagged Chubby Carrier, journal, Laura Purdie Salas, nerdlution, Vermilionville, Zydeco on February 13, 2014| 1 Comment »

Michelle Haseltine is gathering the Nerdlution round-up at her site, One Grateful Teacher.

I am a total nerd and am embracing this nerdlution for 50 days. So how many days has it been? Eighteen, I think. I’ve had to cut my goal of exercise every day to exercise 5 days a week and I’m counting dancing as exercise. My husband and I invited some friends out for Zydeco dancing to Chubby Carrier on Sunday afternoon at Vermilionville. We love these Sunday afternoon gigs. One hour of jitterbug, waltz, and Whiskey River, and I checked off exercise for the weekend.

flickr image by Wally Gobetz

My second goal, writing every day, has gone OK, too, if I don’t worry about word counts. I have been journaling more and not really writing anything that anyone else will read, but practice is the important thing, right?

Staying Open, my One Little Word, is easier than I thought it would be. New things are available and happening all the time. On Saturday, I learned the art of Centering Prayer. I wrote about it on Tuesday for Slice of Life. I have kept up the practice every morning. The only downfall is that I resist the gotta-get-something-done mode. I get so calm and zoned-out that I want to stay in that moment. How many of you would love to live on a yoga mat? I know, it’s not very practical.

I got an appropriate fortune in my fortune cookie last night. “Don’t ask. Don’t say. Everything lies in silence.”

Laura Purdie Salas posts a 15 Words or Less poetry prompt every Thursday. This morning I wrote “Snow Cloud.” To see other poems in response to her picture prompt, visit her site.

Snow Cloud

Each time you
open yourself
to the world,
miracles happen
like snow from
boiling water.

My 15 word journal, a gift from my husband.

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Celebrating Writers and Readers

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Writing, tagged Amy Ludwig Vanderwater, Celebrating Writers, Jeannine Atkins, Laura Purdie Salas, Ruth Ayres on February 1, 2014| 13 Comments »

Ruth Ayres hosts the weekly Saturday Celebration blog round-up. She is also the co-author of Celebrating Writers. I received my copy this week. I have been using the writing workshop model for almost 20 years, so I wasn’t sure I would get more information from another book on writing. Of course, I was wrong. We are always growing and learning. Ruth has put into words so much of my own thinking I feel like we must be friends. Her writing style is like that, friendly, clear, and unpretentious.

Order Celebrating Writers

I am happy to report that without really knowing it, I celebrate writers daily. She writes about the importance of response in celebrating writing. Like Ruth, I love blog comments (hint, hint), but I didn’t realize that I need them, too. Comments nudge me and strengthen my writing. Response does this for my students, too. Comments are a necessary part of the writing process.

My students use kidblog. The last few weeks they have been working on writing a fiction story with nonfiction elements. They are posting chapters on the kidblog site. I encourage each student to comment to two students each week. Celebrating Writers helped me nudge them into more meaningful comments.

I talked to Matthew about the meaning of comments to his own writing. He said, “You are a great writer when a reader sees a mistake. It means they are really reading your story.”

Today, I want to celebrate writing. With two free days this week and the nudge of nerdlution, I wrote every day. I love to write poetry, but coming up with an idea can be difficult. I am celebrating all the prompts I got this week from these sites:

Clare Martin at Orphans of Rain and Dark posted this prompt just for me because I had to miss Acadiana Wordlab last weekend.

On Thursdays, Laura Purdie Salas posts 15 Words or Less writing prompt. She posts an image and her own response and calls for others to contribute. This stretches my writing muscles and connects me with other writers.

Poetry Friday is always a rich round-up of poetry to read and prompts to try. This week Amy Ludwig Vanderwater posted on Poem Farm an original poem and a prompt to begin with a line, “Once somebody asked me.” Then as I read further down, I discovered I won a book giveaway. (Do a happy dance!) Thanks to Amy and Jeannine Atkins for View from a Window Seat: Thoughts on the Writing Life. Can’t wait to get this wonderful surprise gift.

And last, but not least, my students are reading, reading, reading! Here’s a group of them, lined up side by side reading on Friday morning. What a wonderful site! And the room was so quiet!