When I was home, I stalked an author. I can become completely starstruck in the midst of a poet or a writer. This author had penned her own New Orleans story, which equally intrigued and irked me. I checked it out of the library in Gulf Shores and because I had to leave Brenner and his folks the next day, I bought it at Border's in Metairie, knowing I could complete it under the covers each night at my mom's house, wrap it, and present it to her Christmas morning. I also know that my mom will never read this entry because she has dial-up.

So, I didn't really stalk the author as much as I stalked her house. I nearly rolled over a couple and their twin babies as I searched each house on First Street. They were none-too- pleased with me. Neither was Kane, who asked repeatedly, "What are you looking for?" To which I responded, "You wanted to come with me, so hush."

I found the house, pulled over, and explained the game plan to Kane. He seemed cool with the plan, considering that earlier that week, we had also hunted for Eagle Street in Hollygrove to see the the 'hood of his new idol Lil Wayne.

I told Kane that we would nonchalantly stroll up and down the block and ever so subtly gaze over to perhaps catch a glimpse of the author. This contrasts considerably to over a decade back when I rang Betty White's doorbell to see if she would come out and talk to me, my sister, and the baby on my hip. We picked her because we figured she'd be the most accessible. Rose Nyland's naivete undoubtedly painting our perception.

Well, because that baby is now a full-fledge teenager, he stepped out of the car, jogged to the dead center of the author's house, and yelled back to me, "Is this the one? Is this the house where the author lives that you admire? This one? Mom, is this the one right here?" I jumped back into the car, mortified. He returned, smiling, then stopped smiling to gauge my reaction.

I yelled/laughed at him as he laughed/called me ridiculous.

Later that evening, I met up with a friend that I hadn't seen in fifteen years... thanks to Facebook. She hadn't changed a bit... still lovely and sweet. I was thrilled to see her and saddened that we've missed so much time together. Among other embarrassing reminders of our past, she informed me that her English and Creative Writing degrees aren't really needed in her nursing career. She attributes some of that lack of writing productivity to her unease with risk-taking. Is that what separates the stalked-author from the rest of us? How did she make it work? How does she get to live in that exquisite Greek Revival landmark Uptown?

Is that what separates the girl at Betty White's house from the woman who was set straight by her teenage son?

I didn't catch a glimpse of Julia Reed that day, and back on that whirlwind of a trip to Hollywood in the '90's, Betty White's housekeeper informed us that Mrs. White was busy and that we should come back some other time. Do you know we did? What gall! Of course, later, the same housekeeper reported that Mrs. White had left for an event and she was sorry that we didn't get to meet her and I'm sure she wanted to add, "Now get the hell out of here!" I don't really care that I didn't meet Betty White or that I didn't get to see Julia Reed. The highlights of both experiences lie elsewhere.

Resolution: Take more risks!

I think the drive back is so wretched, so dead, so bleak and so unbearably boring to make me appreciate my arrival home (abode), assuaging my malaise as I leave behind my home (city). 

Yesterday, I gathered my students to the carpet to debrief. I listened to their conversations and connections and then, as one little guy in my class tinkered with various little treasures from his desk, I remembered an article that I had recently read.
"Guys, you know I call _____ my little tinkerer, right? Well, I recently read that girls don't tinker enough. I'm going to bring in Kane's old Bionicles and Legos and we have to tinker more. Apparently, it could be one reason why we don't see enough females in the science and engineering fields. Boys tinkle naturally."
They were rolling all over the carpet in fits of giggles at my little malapropism. I had to laugh, too.

Gustav Klimt's The Virgin...

we'll have to do something about the title.

OLD HOUSE

"Good-bye, old house."

I walked through the empty rooms

scouring for missing items, 

double checking closets and corners,

reminiscing.

Eighty percent of me 

unimaginably thrilled to flee 

what had become a hovel;

We jokingly asked,

"Where does the Lorax sleep?"

Twenty percent becoming contemplative...

One interesting year in that old duplex, 

where I could hear the residents below 

yawn and stretch when they awoke,

where I painted the cabinets, replaced each knob, 

bought ten different kinds of curtains, 

a new couch, a new bed.

"You failed in your mission, old house.

You were supposed to be

my stepping stone

into a life of independence.

Instead, you became a nuisance, 

an embarrassment."

As I swept my hands across the

top shelf of my bedroom closet,

a photograph tailspun to the floor.

I flipped it over to find Brenner's profile.

"Interesting...was it a deliberate dilapidation, old house?"

"Time to go!" Brenner yelled from downstairs.

I walked to the living room and 

placed the key on the mantelpiece

"Thank you, old house. Point taken."

One song...

and I was swept away

the present suspended

like dust in sunlight's rays

To many moons back...

a Saturday, cleaning day

loud pop music was allowed

as it prodded us to sweep swiftly,

scrub quickly,

fold, load, polish.

My fat wooden broomstick, my microphone

A morning of chores to complete,

yet we danced and giggled

This same song

over the loud speaker

as I drop frozen entrees

into my shopping cart

the clank, clank, clank of each...

shakes off the fugue

My research question for my dissertation... oh, this is so premature...
something about feedback on writing instruction.
What kind works? When? Under what conditions? How? How often? From whom? peers vs. instructor
Interdisciplinary approach...hmmmm...still working on that part. Psychology, sociology, cultural studies, gender studies?
Any articles on such... send it my way.

Then again, I may just abandon the whole affair...fly off to Paris to sip wine and write poetry along the Seine...and finally use my years of French instruction.
Ooooh la la!

Je vais etudier profondement la retroaction avec ecriture.

I know how that shell of a person became that way.
I know how she suppressed spontaneity and repressed flair
You know the person that makes you wonder about their past
At what point did it happen?
How did she get there?
She used to be someone.
She was in love.
And that's it!
The four letter word that wreaks havoc on "supposed to".
Each day recovering from unfathomable ache,
all that she dreamed of
Hints of hip,
glimpses of glam,
faux facades of the who that never was
surface now and then.
It's pitiful if you know.
If you really know.
Really pitiful.
The shell drives next to you in her unassuming sedan,
eyes glazed as she listens to NPR.
Facts.
Facts are safe.
Music is memories.
Each day passes...
as they're apt to do...
and the shell ossifies.
No tears, no art, no wondering why
No passion, no chaos...
A shell.
Simple. A mollusk.
But you can tell.
That poetry
once permeated
each and every cell.

Image by rachelthiessen
This pic makes me want to smoke. Being on a college campus again does, too.
Arrghh...

Menial, tedious tasks at hand
Make my muse understand
Tell her I cannot come out to play
Ask her why now, why today?
I waited for hours. I pleaded, I beckoned.
I turn to toil and she's there in a second.
Menial, tedious tasks that pile
She floats through my mind all the while
in exhilarating spurts that whisper my name
to remind me of me, to stake her claim

What? If I'm going to have a muse, she's going to look like Shannyn Sossaman.

I want to work at Hogwarts.
Housing is provided.
I'd make sure Mr. Potter was not in any of my classes. Trouble seems to follow him.
I would be responsible for one subject... Professor of the Light Arts:
spells and potions for things associated with happiness: romance, laughter.
I'd feast regularly.
Dombledore would be my boss.
Minerva and I would exchange ideas, gossip.
I'd flirt with Snape. I like the mysterious, serious type.
The lessons are authentic.
Magic abounds.
And Brenner could catch the train to come visit me.
Wait... he's a muggle.

A few years ago, I set out to write an expository text about all there is to know about teaching literacy or writing across the curriculum or something in that realm. I was that arrogant. Had that book been published with my name on it, I would have to track down each copy and destroy it out of sheer embarrassment.
I now know that I know nothing.


A colleague of mine shared with me today that she regularly reads my blog.

Good luck in fifth grade!

Presented Six Traits workshop for new teachers today! I think it went swimmingly. Their feedback revealed that I'm not just thinking very highly of myself. I combined some of the Teacher as Writer activities (from SAWP's Open Institute) with Six Traits exercises, including scoring student pieces with a four-point rubric. Teachers wrote when asked and didn't decide to chat with a neighbor... beauty of small groups. We crammed a two-day presentation into three and half hours.
I was able to arrive home in time to see what will be my last mid-day viewing of Las Vegas.

So long, summer.
Later, lounging.
Toodles, two a.m. bedtime
Arrivederci, reading for pleasure
Sayonara, sleeping until ten, eleven

Here we go...

Fruitlessly fishing for alliterative phrases
that could capture the essence of summer's phases,
but switched instead to a little rhyme...
I'll be more alliterative next time...

Suffocating, sweltering, Good God it's 104!
Languid, listless, Let's watch one more...
movies from RedBox only cost a dollar
The A/C is so loud we all have to holler
Take a trip, in fact take three
Travel awakens the spirit in thee!
Return to dog-eared books strewn around the place
It's not that I'm reading at a snail's pace
No, I'm watching Las Vegas and playing on the Internet
Don't eat another carb! Have you exercised once yet?
Wait for an evening breeze to take Reggie for a walk
Call family, not to request, just to talk
Work on the great American novel at a local cafe
But my vacationing muse just won't obey

And tell me that's not the letter welcoming us back.
Prepare for the crunch, good-bye to the slack

I have to show up.
Whether my genius does or not...
Well, that's not up to me.
I just have to show up.
Sketch, scribble, scrap,
scratch the surface
of all that is stored within
It's the least I can do.
It's the most I can do.

A handful of educators from my district attended an ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) Conference this weekend in Houston. The topic was Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design. I had a few Eureka! moments about how to organize my lessons in a way that will facilitate transfer of learning to real life applications, to other concepts, and across disciplines and how to address and plan for differences (readiness, learning profile, interests) from the onset with appropriate assessments. One way to make sure an assessment is appropriate is to have a colleague look at it and see if they can tell you what your enduring understandings are. 

Developing your Enduring Understandings, which I now call Endurstandings, is the first step. Study the curriculum: What concepts do I want students to understand now, next month, next year? The skills that they will be able to show you through assessments are not proof of endurstanding. Develop (with your team) some essential questions that you can ask to guide the lesson and to facilitate the transfer of learning. These EQ's can be topical or overarching. 

A group of us developed these overarching EQ's for ELA/ Writing: 

How does an effective writer hook a reader?

How does a good writer connect to the reader?

Why should a writer care about conventions in text? 

How does the reader know the writer's purpose and/or expertise?

How does the reader know how the writer feels about the topic?

We can refer to these questions throughout the year as we write, but also during our guided reading lessons to reinforce the reading/writing connection. As we delve into certain kinds of writing, our questions can become more topical. 

Can you think of any other overarching essential questions for writing? 

ensorcell: to enchant; to bewitch

Travel changes us
Amazon women are warriors
Hail, Judith!
Pass through time and space
close, closer
Broken clocks help us to pause
in that moment
at that place
Where we are who we could have been
Where women are warriors
Hail, Hail, Judith!

Aaaahh... summer. What did I plan for June? Some writing and reading? I'm at the onset of six different books, have magazines open all over the house, haven't written anything at all. Ideas float in my head and then they evaporate in this 100+ degree weather. Plus, my laptop is being serviced and I hate to admit my dependency on it.
New Orleans highlights: laughing at Joey and Brenner; strolling down Magazine St. with Sherik and those adorable teal sandals I bought at Shoe-Nami; quintessential po-boys at Parkway Bakery and then stalking James Carville and Senator Landrieu; feeling like the third wheel on a date as Maw Maw Retta regaled Brenner with her local history; stuffed artichoke and fried shrimp at Franky & Johnny's; Kimberle cracking actually funny jokes in her kitchen where she had just whipped up an eggplant and shrimp casserole; Pepper's contempt for Reggie's energetic presence; hugging the so-very-happy Mrs. Swindle at her retirement shindig; sweating in the Marigny under banana and lime trees as the familiar aroma of boiled crawfish lingered with the notes of live, slow jazz.
Former colleagues present asked, "When ya comin' back home?"
Resident Alien.

----------------------------------------


Done. The school year has concluded and I'm no longer deluded by the the millions of directions my brain wandered during that last week. Melancholy, excitement, gratitude, relief in one realm lingering with disappointment, stress, embarrassment in another and revelation, accomplishment, blessing in yet another. It's done. It's time to breathe. It's time to write. First assignment: complete my third grade teacher's gift for her retirement party. She and I collaborated on an article during the summer of Katrina. Naturally, its completion was discarded until now. I want to wrap it up and present her with my version of events. It's a reflection of our writing lives and how they've continued to cross paths.
Brenner, Kane, Reggie, and I will hit the road Thursday to return to N.O. It should be an interesting experience with the four of us.
--------------------------------

I had a spirited discussion with my friend Mariana
at the Liberty Bar last night
The venue was my choice
Out of our school's teeny community
and into a 100-year old wooden building with a mean lean
but possesses the essence of familiar haunts
It is my duty to my former self, my N.O. soul

We stepped into the unmistakable air of cigarettes, a/c, fried foods, and spirits
And instantly started to swap stories and insights
Her unpretentious, passionate paradigm presented over micheladas
delivered me from my debilitating doubt

Agents of change she called us in her endearing accent
Her intriguing past is a catalyst for the future
We sat there in that old bar
Our laughter and loudness floated along the sounds of chairs scraping the hardwood floors, the rhythmic tat tat tat of the ceiling fan pull chain, the cash register, Natalie Merchant and the like

My cell phone sat forlorn on my bedroom dresser
Hers accidentally left in the car
We talked to each other instead
And we talked...
multiculturalism, validation, worth, power, change

Certain people in our lives
Bring certain gifts
That you didn't know you needed
Until you receive them

She dropped me off at home three hours later
where I found 15 missed calls
one made me think I was much more inebriated than I had calculated
I sat on my bed, listening to the unmistakable voice of my third grade teacher

Purple Rain, Prince and the Revolution for our Mardi Gras costumes
Actual rain as we chased each other around World's Fair 1984


Had you told me then...
That she would some day be my colleague,
and then even later call to invite me to her "huge retirement party"...


The Marianas and Lindas remind me
of the eternal positive influence of a passionate teacher

Wake up, educators!

Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover

New book to buy: Intelligence and How to Get It by Richard Nisbett, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. This book offers advice on how to address poverty and inequality in our educational system. He proffers that intellectual ability is not fixed at birth, but is expandable, something we can shape.
Students exposed to that idea work harder and get better grades.
“Some of the things that work are very cheap,” Professor Nisbett noted. “Convincing junior-high kids that intelligence is under their control — you could argue that that should be in the junior-high curriculum right now.”
Some of his suggestions include
-praising effort more than achievement
-teaching delayed gratification
-limiting reprimands and use praise to stimulate curiosity

Interview question I was once asked: Can all children learn?

What a no-brainer.

I've been accepted to UTSA's doctoral program for Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching! I had to opt for part-time status since I sort of need my current salary. Life will be frenetic next year, but I'm excited about being a student again.

Since April's National Poetry Month, here's a haiku of celebration:

Aahh..pedagogy,
Understanding by Design...
The doctor is in

:)

I tried to buy FLOW, but Borders didn't have the version I sought. I'll try again during this luxurious three-day weekend. I did read, however, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. Wo! I highly recommend this memoir. Sadly, though, as much as I sympathized for Jeannette, the artist that has been stifled in me understood her mother's flair and unorthodox reasoning. My artist, not a graphic one by any means, does not give a flip about societal norms and appearances. I want to stay up into all hours of the night, sleep late, eat when I'm hungry, not when it's scheduled, write and read poetry, paint, travel. I guess it all goes back to the concept of flow.
Then, because of past turbulence, I seek order and peace. This is not all bad, though. How else would I pay the bills?

FLOW

I first learned about this concept of flow before it even became a factor in my classroom. I was teaching blindly in the beginning, but learning simultaneously via evening courses and my association with the Greater New Orleans Writing Project. The GNOWP director and I attended a network meeting where the guest lecturer was Jeff Wilhelm. His enthusiasm for teaching writing probably converted the wait staff in the restaurant to find the nearest alternative certification program. He discussed the "hot seat" where students attacked the protagonist on the hot seat with their journalistic questions. He demonstrated many action strategies for deepening comprehension and he touched on FLOW.

What is flow? For me, it's when your students are so engrossed that they don't remind you that it's almost time for lunch or recess. They grunt when you remind them or we all rush out of the room minutes behind schedule because the teacher was also a little wrapped up in it all.

From Wikipedia (this definition happens to work for me, so I'll use it):

"Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Proposed by positive psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields.^[1]"

Teachers must understand the merits of differentiated instruction (each student's learning style, readiness, interests) and the concepts of the state-mandated curriculum, and then connect the two.

I'm going to buy MC's book and also revisit some of Wilhelm's works. I'll keep you posted.

According to Dr. Nile Stanley, a reading specialist, researcher, and professor of education at the University of North Florida, “Poetry helps students do well on high stakes tests because it gives their minds an exhilarating workout. Poetry inspires students to read more, imagine more, think more, discuss more and write more.” Poetry also “massages the heart, cares for the soul, and preps students on life’s tougher questions that are seldom asked on high stakes tests."
-K.J. Wagner, Education Oasis


Borrowed from the San Antonio Writing Project's NCTE presentation, the Social Justice Poetry activity has been quite eye-opening for me. It all started when we discussed the upcoming holiday and Dr. King's dream of equality for all and his non-violent approach. My fourth graders listed some social ailments that they have heard about or have discussed at home. They were sent off to list the feelings, connections, and images created by the topic.

Here are some highlights of the experience:

• They choose the issue. They're motivated by that choice.
• I hesitated to use the word 'poignant' to describe a piece, but when I did, they knew what I meant.
• One stoic young man altered the tone of his piece to make the last line rhyme and when I pointed out the shift, he understood why his tone needed to remain consistent. Rhyming Schmyming.
• I had a one-on-one conversation about Iraq and its effects.
• I learned what issues are discussed in their households and which they would change if they could.
• My students are empathetic... authentically.
  
• One very analytical student unsurprisingly wrote a paragraph and not a poem and I found myself delicately trying to explain the tools that a poet uses: imagery, repetition, alliteration. With a few small nudges, he transformed his piece and maybe even his paradigm as well. We'll see.
  

Poetry Can be Found Anywhere

This activity was a hit at Friday's Poetry Cafe.
Pick a letter of the alphabet.
Write it on a piece of paper. Choose the capitalized version first.
What does it look like?
For instance,

A
is a candy corn
is a snow-capped mountain
A is the fin of a shark, circling our tiny wooden boat
A is the snout of a sea lion
A is...

List what it looks like with repetitive lines and every third line or so, add details. Then flip it and start again. It's also a neat way to incorporate geometry (slides, rotations) with poetry.
I'll include some more student samples next week.