Blogging with Summer Institute 2008

Welcome Back! We are now officially, at the mid point.

Writing into the Day:

How does it feel? How about taking some time to just reflect on your writing life at the Summer Institute,( a bit of a process writing). Feel free to include your Scramble experience.

Digital Documenter Mike

Logger from Wednesday: Mary
HVWP SI2008 Tratoria
Mercoledì, 16 di Juli 2008

Antipasti
Journal writing: We dig through our handbags and wallets for clues and discovered these characters:
.
“His calligraphy was just like him, deliberate, rigid, and complicated” (Catherine Wille, an old receipt)

“She had become good at the deception, tilting her head in a certain way, having her hand close to her ear to make it seem as though she was just leaning…” (Paulette Easterlin, cell phone traffic ticket)

“It was the final days of a long three semesters. All but one assignment was turned in. My final project, a Powerpoint presentation on developing vocabulary for ELLs was placed on my memory stick.” (Terri Colon, memory stick)

”I reach for the cortisone: My only temporary relief in this vicious war zone.” (Lilah Weiss, cortisone cream)

Insalate
Community Reading with special guest, Denise Maltese

We agree that we DO NOT want to teach writing so that it puts our students in a narrow tunnel. We DO want our students to perform well on state writing tests AND we want them to experience writing as an act of empowerment, voice, and even, dare we say, subversion. We raise concerns about the use of tests to control teachers: Who are we testing? Is it really the students? These tests show that teachers are not to be trusted.

Primi
Susan Olsen’s TIW: The Power of Poetry

We learn how poetry can “grab” even our most disaffected students, and how students’ natural talent in writing poetry can surprise them as much as us. Thank you, Susan, for a delicious poetry reading and writing experience! Kathy Berstell inspired us with her front yard/back yard poem:
The Field Trip

Follow the rules, play the game
No time for field trips cuz money is the name
Invest in the surface
Appearances count
The front yard is school board and budget costs mount

But think of returns
Why can’t we try this?
The backyard is freedom
Opportunities not to miss.

Overtime, insurance
Obstacles in the way
Who’s in charge? How’s and whys,
And who will pay?

I say,
Let’s open that back door
Bring some sunshine to the night
And let our XP student
Find experiential light

Secondi
Staci Sweeden treated us to theater community-building exercises and a process-drama (for developing our voices as teacher-advocates) in which we considered the role of the poverty in our schools and how the federal government might respond.

Staci (AKA “Karen Armstrong): Ma’am—we haven’t heard from you. What do you think about what you’ve heard today?

Terri: My name is Old Lady Terri and I can’t hear a blessed thing!

Dolci
We needed tiramisu, but we got better than that! We were treated to a 10-minute performance of her monologue, Pardon Me for Living

(Imagine Julie Andrews singing “It’s May! It’s May!)
It’s May, it’s May, and it is a beautiful day in Sleepy Hollow, the small village where I live on the Hudson River. The sun is out, and I really want to get some of that vitamin C or D or—I don’t know why I can’t remember vitamin names much less remember to take them…but I know there is some kind of vitamin in the sun and dammit, I want mine! …

Grazie Staci!
TIW Reflections:

Paulette’s TIW

Professional Piece is Due: Ugh…

Back in the Lab with Bonnie and Steve

Steve presents Wikis

Bonnie takes us back to edublogs, our blogs to make sense of  process pieces

Here’s a sample:

Mike’s Process Essay

Mike and his Monologue project

One day in April, just before spring break, Ms. Kaplan began class with a weird announcement. She let us know that there would be no formal final exam.  We cheered but I watched her and she had more to say.
I was right.  She had more to say.
Instead of a written final exam, we would work on a project, a monologue project.  What’s a monologue???
Ms. Kaplan kept smiling.  We weren’t.  She explained that we would write a monologue, present it to the class, and then write about the experience in an essay that would be due on the last day of school.  Ugh.  I began to wish we were going to take a final exam.
She read us a monologue written by a student from last year and then we began the project with a photo she offered each of us.  I got a  little boy on a scale wearing boxing gloves. What?  And I had to write as if I were this kid?  She was smiling again a demented smile.
I put my pen on the paper and nothing came out.  I held it there.  With Ms. Kaplan, I know if she sees me not using my pen, she will push me to write- the writing cop.  I stared at the kid and on my page I wrote the word “I remember.and then I just continued as the kid, as me.
Fifteen minutes later Ms. Kaplan called time and asked if anyone would like to share.  I didn’t want to but at least I had something on the paper.  I wasn’t totally sure about what a monologue was, but I was thinking about what I would wear if I used this writing as my monologue.
I was hoping to see more of her photo collection, to pick my own.  She told us we would be using photos often so we didn’t have to feel stuck with this first one.
This was just my beginning and I didn’t use this writing.  I never added another word to this start,.  In fact, I had lots of starts before I came up with my final topic.  I didn’t use any of the photos I wrote about.
I was actually out with my family on a picnic and I began to watch an ant crawl on the blanket and I wished that I had my journal.  I couldn’t believe that Ms. Kaplan was in my head at our picnic, smiling. “You should have taken your journal, just in case.”

Now to your blog and time to create a post there.  Let’s do this together.