isn't poetry great?

a couple of great poems to use for the classroom:

Stink Eye by Cathy Song

this is a really nice poem because it helps out (helped me out) with a little bit of a bullying study and writing assignment. i have middle schoolers (sixth graders), so i don't assume them to do too much with this beyond content discussion, but it's also great for looking at dramatic monologues and voice for those in high school.

Dream Variations by Langston Hughes

i mean, come on. Langston Hughes is an old standard. "A Dream Deferred," which you should never ever discount, gives me chills every time i read it out loud. but "Dream Variations" is really nice given the title and its implications when you consider the poem and the poem's refrain "Black like me" and "Dark like me".

I also want to put this to consideration:

"Another pair of gilded transpirations" by Joshua Beckman

Another pair of gilded transpirations
kept me happy all night -- the bay aglow with revelers,
those shore hollow stones making home in your chest.
Cold waters that wash down such olympian quandaries
and sorrowful cascades set free. "Daniel, now hold that
cup carefully." That's the sort of thing mother
would say to me, the sun playing about the witch hazel
in the courtyard. With an emerald magnetism
the dew settles. I have been writing lately
on the grief of the body. I enclose
about my head memories and am in due course awoken.
In direct relation to the sun, wind, and rain
my apple tree produces.

now you can call me strange. you can say, "but i don't get it!!" well, that's not my problem! well, in a way yes, in a way no. what you see here is a thirteen line almost-sonnet. not in the traditional sense, of course, rather in a very interesting combination of the sonnet tradition and the jarring-narrative/non-narrative play that apparently has begun to set in as a trend in some poets under 40 these days. in the traditional sense, this is a perfect study of a sonnet: you have a narrative (albeit it strange) that seems to have some sort of trajectory (albeit strange) in the beginning. then, the latter half of the poem, starting with "I have been writing lately..." takes a turn (something that the Petrarchan sonnet does frequently, from stanza one to stanza two, or what the Elizabethan sonnet will do at the ending couplet). in the non-traditional sense, we have a sonnet that's only thirteen lines! i think that this can be used in terms of studying contemporary uses of the sonnet (in high school, maybe in a senior AP course), but also of the idea of narrative and non-narrative lyrics. it's a great exercise for a creative writing class, or a class studying different types of poetry to mimic or examine this technique of writing a poem because i think it creates a deeper kind of poetry, something more sudden, haphazard-looking, and meandering. students should be encouraged to meander in their writing and to break their thoughts suddenly if the poem calls for it. it's a great stylistic attribute, and will add character to the students' writing.

maybe i'll do this as a nice little featurette every once and again...yes?

reflections on the expedition

later on i'm going to give a few pointers based on some PD we did once on the difference between a "learning expedition," which is a feature of being at an Expeditionary Learning school, and a unit. the basic idea is that the expedition has the concept of field work built into it, and the end result is a product that is physical and documented (like a video, a book of work, or something) that sort of like the accumulation of all the knowledge the kids've gained while exploring the topic they're exploring. units can be based around certain ideas and themes, and so can expeditions (ours is "Surviving Adolescence," for example), but the real expedition is about something specific--a "compelling topic" as it were.

well, our compelling topic was Sierra Leone, and specifically child soldiers, and more specifically Ishmael Beah's "Memoirs of a Boy Soldier." so, we rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed a dance, a poem, a song and a play; we painted a mural (i mean the kids--two really--although i really mean my mentor teacher did it all and the kids colored it in...) and we put it all together in front of the other students of the school. 400 kids. it was fantastic. the kids did very, very well, and i'm very proud of them.

ishmael beah came, also. yup! he came to our school and spoke to our kids. they had lots of questions for him, usually about the same question that the other student next to him/her asked. but, it's all good. they felt completely satisfied and grateful for his coming to see them. i, however, was wicked awkward in front of him. never thank an author. he knows you're grateful. anyway, point of it is, we finished the book the day he came to our school. it's a bit pathetic, but that's how it goes. as for the final exam, i'm rather disappointed in my execution of it, but also the apathy that many students have for completing it. it's unfortunate. but, should it really be any skin off my back if they tell me they're not going to do it and get the zero anyway?

all in all, it was a very, very rushed reading of the book. i would've loved to do it at a much slower pace, but that's just not the case, really. i'd also like to have figured out much more a homework schedule (another issue i'd like to discuss at another point in time) and also a reading day vs. non-reading day. the schedules just were too crazy, and i never intergrated much of the stuff i wanted to integrate into the reading of the book. it sucks, but i suppose that's just how it went.

all in all, goods and challenges. i'm sure i'll be more prepared and be able to time my reading of a book much better. learning rules!!!

some ideas for the next unit

the next unit will be writing a memoir, as per the end of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. so, what shall we do? i mean, we have to do something interesting, right? it can't just be a plain old thing, right? right.

so, they'll be writing a memoir. i think what i'm going to do is have it done incrementally (well, you have to!)...so i think what i've got going will try and last me until the second week of june is this:

1. introduce what a memoir is by way of quick lecture and activity...possibly spending a day or two on it, showing the different possibilities of memoir, having them explore them and maybe figure out what a memoir is all about, and why people would want to write a memoir in the first place.

2. an intense grammar unit that will go along with their actual memoir writing...i'll be using The Power of Grammar by mary ehrenworth and vicki vinton...it's a wonderful book and is incredibly helpful in planning an "inquiry-based" approach to teaching grammar--so not just doing direct instruction, rather having the kids figure out the Why Use Grammar question themselves (with proper modeling, etc).

3. write a memoir--this will be in tandem with the grammar instruction, because the writing itself will fuel the grammar practice and revision. i think this will take a good two weeks to do, and if it takes longer than i'm not so worried about it. i'll plan two weeks for it and leave room. anyways, this'll funnel into the other part of my whole plan, which is...

4. wrapping it up. in their exploration of different forms of memoir, i'm going to introduce them to comic book/graphic novel style memoir; storycorps (check out www.storycorps.org, it's really pretty awesome); comic book diaries; traditional memoir/memoir in verse; and i had another idea, but i forget what it was. so, the idea is that they'd take their memoir and wrap it up into a different format, finally: either a story, a comic book diary/graphic novel, or a traditional memoir (in that case, it'd be more of a refining process than anything else...i might wann' work the kinks out of that).

some reflections after visiting the district of columbia

i don't know how to start this post, so i guess i'll just preface it all with what i did the past few days: i went to DC! yes, my home away from home (since i went there for college) has popped into my mind several times, and i've figured out that that is where i want to be when i teach as a real-life, fully employed teacher.

so, since we have vacation now i thought i'd head to DC to see many people and visit a few schools. here are some impressions:


the first school i visited was off the benning road metro stop, not far away from it. if you look at the map, it means that it's across the anacostia river, which means that, most likely, no white person lives there, and the accent suddenly twangs intensely and it gets much more southern sounding. for a white person like me, although accustomed to a diverse (aka, not predominantly white) school, who's also a northerner, it seems that my skin suddenly whitens more and my little racisms that i'm terribly embarassed about pop up. i went to the office and sat around stewing in my own ridiculousness--blazer, etc.

getting past that, i saw some nice sixth grade classes--two english classes and a special ed class. i also saw an eighth grade class, but they had finished and were just kind of foolin 'round (everyone was preparing for DC-CAS, the standardized test apparently based off the MCAS, Mass's test). quite honestly, the classes looked pretty intense--like, probably, a class at CMS where some of my friends are doin' there teaching, too. i think it was the outside of the class stuff that rubbed me the wrong way: the way that kids were roaming, the way that one girl sang directly in my ear (i guess my nervousness played right into that, but still).

what i liked: professional development every day, and for different purposes, too. once a week, there was something called "classroom blitz," which has the teachers observing other teachers, which keeps them on their toes and all their requirements in order. i like that a lot. also that they have a "respect center," where the kids can chill out and reflect on why they shouldn't smack someone upside the head, or whatever may happen. that's very similar to our school, which is nice.

what i didn't like was that there weren't any paraprofessionals due to understaffing. and no technology, which sucks but if that's how it goes, that's how it goes.


i think, for the sake of length, i will keep it at this...tomorrow i'll post about the other school i went to.

in the midst of ridiculousness, there is always the hilarious

today one of my sixth graders, C., said to me, "I like your plaid shirt."

Me: Thanks!
C.: Yeah, it tells the world "I really like plaid shirts and sweaters!"
Me: [laughing hysterically] You don't know how true that is!
C.: [realizing i only wear plaid shirts and sweaters] You have a point!


sometimes, in the midst of the ridiculous frustrations of daily stuff, there is always the hilarious.

the job search goes on and a few frustrations...

i've been looking a lot at where i'd like to be when i grow up, er, when i graduate from the umass program. so far, i've been extremely interested in going back to DC; going to philadelphia to be close to my girlfriend and friends; and new york, which is a curiosity but isn't high high on the priority list. naturally, my fall back is springfield, which i think i will apply to in the district, and, if there is an opening, then at my school.

well, after looking at lots of DC schools, i've decided to head down there and take a look for myself. i'm extremely interested in seeing what things look like down there, and have already contacted one public school. i'm looking to see at least one or two more schools while i'm down there (one more public, and a charter school), and also maybe a school in NOVA (northern va) and also roaming around alexandria a bit to see what that's like.

anyways, i'm trying to find out about the different neighborhoods of philly, seeing as i've been there on visits for about 8 years now, and still know barely anything about the area. i mean, no surprise there--it's not like i've been on outings to the outskirts besides where my friends take me, which is usually center city or six flags (our amazing tradition). and i'm not complaining--center city is amazingly rich (historically) and cool and i'd love to explore more of it, actually. mm...walks. anyways, if i want to teach in philly, i should know a bit about the areas, and how the education works there.

what frustrates me is the idea of what's "good" and what's "bad." my friend a. says that usually when people say bad, they mean violent. north philly is violent. southwest philly is violent. apparently. but what about when we refer to good and bad schools? what makes a school good, what makes a school bad? is it performance? is it level of invested students? is it professional development? is it technology? how can someone say, there are no good schools in an area? if that were true, then no one would be teaching in those places, right, and only teaching in suburbs, where the "good" schools are--which, by the way, i was a product of and, although the education there is prized highly, and success, like all suburban cultures, is tantamount to godliness, the school is a pile of shit: lead in the paint (probably), and terribly corroded pipes that put the school on probation for several years. so then, is my high school good by that standard?

i'm teaching in springfield. a supposedly "bad" place to teach, because it's urban. there is lots of violence, and the kids (most, not all) come from homes that are not always the best of situations. sometimes school is often the safest place to be. so why, then, is my school environment and culture so much more improved and pleasing to me than the other schools i've heard about/been to? performance-wise it's not fantastic. in fact, i'm sure our MCAS scores (state tests) are gonn' be not so fantastic this year, either. and yet i consider it to be a great school--it fosters an amazing environment where good character is top priority, and becoming self-reflective is a requirement of all students in learning and behavior.

so what's good? what do you judge by? how can you judge a school?

these are some of the questions that frustrate me as i look for jobs, but also frustrate me when people pass judgement on certain schools. i know, in the end, good for me means professional development, a good student-to-computer ratio, and a supportive administration that knows its students and is not too big for its own britches.

the search continues....

some ideas for the new unit

so i've been trying to find some sort of angle to place upon the reading of our new book, the memoir A Long Way Gone. and by trying i mean ideas have trickled in and out of my head when i've put my brain to it, and now that i'm trying to rest in my bed and plan for tomorrow, i've begun to think about the book as a whole, and the unit as a whole.

i had originally titled a lesson plan with my unit as "the struggle for voice." a bit of a play, as ishmael beah's struggle is about escaping the war, joining the military as a boy soldier, and eventually coming to grips with his emotional scarring and past after having been "rescued" of sorts by UNICEF (i will never know what that acronym stands for...until i look it up). the voice part is that, according to my mentor teacher, J, his ultimate purpose in life is tell his story, and that's why he wrote that book. it's the one way he can come to grips with his past and get some reconcilliation.

there is a scene in the book where he applies and gets accepted to this UN conference of many different children from countries bound by terrible conflict. the children share their stories, cry, and comfort each other with all this. then ishmael goes back to freetown, the capital of sierra leone. the war suddenly comes into the city; he must escape again, and he does, and though the story ends before he goes back to NYC, we know that's where he ends up. points of it all, is, so he escaped, but how does he deal with his past? storytelling, aka finding his voice.

thus, "the struggle for voice." i hadn't thought much of it til now, nor what i wanted to do with it. i always had this wonderful idea of bringing in some speakers to help me out with finding voice, but it was more of a pipedream than anything else. now, i think it might work with some planning, which i'm getting a bit better at doing.

here are my ideas for the unit:

• name is "the struggle for voice." filter the book through two themes: struggle and voice. introduce the idea of theme as opposed to main idea (something they'll be struggling with a bit, but i think we'll figure it out) (mass standard/power standard 11.3)
  
• link the previous unit on empowerment to struggle and voice.
• since we're doing the talent show fundraiser, have all the kids work on their reading fluency and performance (mass standard/power standard 3.8)
• bring students each day to the auditorium to hold class...it'll be a nice break from the classroom environment, plus a fantastic way to use space in order to read passages.
• work consistently on reading fluency (3.8), performance of passages in the book, and enforcing the idea that good readers focus on the whole text, not just the words. the question is, though, how? any ideas?

so that's that...if anybody has any ideas, i'd love to share them.