Writing into the Day: TIW Reflections This writing will lead us to a Socratic Seminar for TIW wisdom.

Let’s make a list of all our TIW Titles and then revisit the elements of a TIW.

It’s official everyone can take a TIW breath. We have all created a first draft. Now how can we move them to the next place? Let’s write about what stands out to us. What TIW’s seemed to hit the mark in the specific elements of the TIW?

Here’s the 2008 Handout:

TIW description: In the Summer Institute,

you will share a well honed literacy-based activity or lesson that you do with your students in an 80-minute Teacher Inquiry Workshop (TIW).  You will take us through the process you use with your students, allowing us first-hand experience in the learning and writing.  An important part of your workshop involves sharing select examples of student work–how your own students responded to the lesson — as a way to illustrate and study your teaching practice and the range of students with whom you work. All workshops include time for collegial interaction and discussion.

What do presenters do in a TIW?

Explain (origins of) a teaching practice that is important to your literacy instruction and worth sharing and studying with colleagues. Describe your school setting, your students, teaching, and literacy practices. This is the context for my work- where, why, and how I’m working and thinking about a teaching practice to address students’ literacy.

Describe and demonstrate this literacy practice and how it supports students’ learning.  Share selected samples of real student work … excellent and warty. This practice reflects my hypothesis of what I do to support students develop skills as readers, writers, speakers, and/or thinkers. The student work I brought is data that I have been collecting in my study.

Craft real-time aspects of this literacy experience so that seminar participants can do what your students do (read/write) and/or think deeply about what they notice in the students’ writing.  Carefully structured learning activities can help adults learn about teaching methods/strategies through experience and reflection.

Offer a rationale this literacy practice related to your beliefs about teaching and learning, any outside research(ers), and the interests of your students, parents, or administrators. This is how I see my work in a larger context. These texts I have read and am now reading inform my work.

Invite participants to think about, write, comment, and ask questions about the workshop experience and to imagine how/if the practice would work in another setting.  Participants can think with me about this literacy practice, their experience of it, its implications in other settings, and/or new directions or next steps.

* We identify teaching as an act of inquiry and teachers as learners.

DD: Barbara

Logger: Katelin

Dear Matt,
I know I have been gone for a while, but I still can’t believe that there is only one day left. Today was amazing and exhausting…we started our writing day by penning postcards to those we haven’t spoken to in a while (I figure with my hours you deserved a postcard!). Accompanied by classical Brazilian guitar (provided by Bonnie, of course), we set to work to reconnect and write for an truly authentic purpose. Mary even gave us stamps to avoid the follow-through problem.
We continued our day by exploring two very different worlds, classrooms, and groups of students:
Cathy voiced her desire for her usually marginalized high school students to have meaningful writing experiences that can offer them ways to both express themselves in more abstract terms while giving them the tools they need to move themselves across the line society imposes upon them. We examined curious objects (ooh…I wanted to take that duck home with me!) and discussed the work of two students after we engaged in the same writing activity. I was left considering the implications of this kind of literacy engagement for all students as depending on what happens in the future, many of them will traverse the line of marginalization more than one time. Cathy’s work is important and interesting. I am glad I am lucky enough to be here.
I can’t wait for the book presentations tomorrow. Bonnie’s bells are going to get a workout!
Lilah closed our afternoon as she navigated us through the world of young learners who are not a part of the “literacy club” (which I, by the way, totally want to join. Is there a local chapter?). Lilah moved us into her classroom (“I rode my bike yesterday. Oh, and then I ran to the park. I was so sweaty. I ran near the swing sets and the sun was sooooo hot!”) within the TIW (“One type of scaffolding I use is scribing where I literally write down what my students say.” It was really useful to be opened to the world of beginning writers, and I am still thinking about the common scaffolding I use in my high school classroom.
I am unsure what happened the rest of the day. I went to the lab to help Steve with the anthology (read: sat and watched him format like nobody’s business) but I made sure to turn Mary into my loan shark to ask for cash for the shirts. I can’t wait to see the design when I get home. Thanks again for doing it a second year (Do you have any ideas for next year yet? What? Too early?). I guess I will see you around 9:30 when you get in. Thanks again for tiding up yesterday; I promise to clean out the litter box when I get home. Thanks, thanks, thanks.

Love,
Katelin

TIW Reflections: Cathy W. and Lilah

a.        Writing Matters… / Period.

b.       WWYW-What Would You Write?

c.        If at first you don’t suceed, write and write some more!

d.       Shut up and write!

e.        Get dirty! / Roll up your sleeves and write!

f.         Write On!

g.        Quitters never write.

h.       Inspiring Minds Want to Write!

i.         Got Words?

j.         “Drown me with your ideas” / “Write!”

Size:        YL (Youth Large)                  S              M            L              XL           XXL

Color:     First Choice:                           Red         Blue         Green      Yellow    Purple     White

                Second Choice:                      Red         Blue         Green      Yellow    Purple     White

Name:_______________________________________________

The intellectuals profiled in the article believe that media/Internet saturation has decreased their capacity for “deep reading” which they argue is “indistinguishable from deep thinking.” Do you sense this in yourself? In our culture? In your students? What are the implications of this?

What impact does Internet/mobile communication technology saturation have on emergent writers and readers?

Baggage

From Panning for Gold in the Kitchen Sink

For every person who brags about spending a summer traveling around the country with nothing but a small backpack containing three pairs of socks and a camera, there is another person who packs an entire wardrobe for a two-week stay at a nearby beach.  When we pack, we are forced to confront our essential natures.  The classic worrier hides traveler’s checks in the three separate bags and memorizes his credit-card numbers in case they are stolen.  The workaholic packs an extra batter-pack for her laptop. And the serious sightseer brings three different travel guides.
Still, we make mistakes, anticipating formal dinners only to wind up eating fast food.  We forget that drugstores exist in other cities, and even other countries, and we scoop up handfuls of trial size bottles of shampoo and shaving cream and line our suitcases with them only to take half of them back home again.
And no matter how well we think we’ve packed, most of us have had the experience of forgetting something as basic as a toothbrush or as important as the first page of a report for a business presentation.

Panning Instructions:
1. Make a list of several items you have forgotten to pack for a vacation or business trip.
2. Make a second list of items you have packed but didn’t need or use once you got to your destination.
3. Make a third list of unlikely things either to pack or to forget to pack for a trip. For example, a pink flamingo, my first-grade report card, or a towel Mick Jagger wiped his forehead with.

Excavating Instructions: Psychologists claim we all carry psychic “baggage” around with us—wounds from our childhoods, betrayals by ex-lovers.  Make a list of the baggage you carry.  For example, anger from that time my father grounded me for two weeks when I got caught shoplifting, or sadness from my mother’s death.

Pack the story, poem, or essay that you begin by bringing emotion to your writing One way of doing this is to have the items you have either forgotten or remembered become metaphors for an enduring feeling.
The Diary of a Fly on the Wall Log for 7/21/08

8:35 a.m.

Wow, this place is a piece of cake, easy to sneak in!! A lady was coming in the door with so much stuff in her arms that she needed help to get in. She was so busy with all her stuff, books, a roll of big white paper, markers, what a pile of stuff. She must be important. She distracted everyone, so no one noticed little old me slip in….

Everybody was so busy, something about a halfway point, and “how you’ve changed as a writer during this institute”. This must be the institute, and they must be writing at those little tables. Humans are wierd, but at least they don’t notice me when they’re busy writing.

A lady named Bonnie asked for something called “two volunteers”, and I know how to count, and she only got one. But everyone laughed at that one volunteer when she said, “Am I nuts? I am retired. Why am I working so hard?”

Then a lady named Mary read something off the screen, about antipasta and primi at a tratoria. I didn’t understand much, but again everyone laughed when Lilah’s cortisone creme “provided relief in a war zone” and Mary’s secondi was a ,,,”Old Lady Terri who can’t hear a blessed thing.”

Then came a different kind of laughing that was more complicated, I think. A lady named Cathy stood up to read more words off that big screen. Everyone laughed at her “Hamstermobile that went 0-60mph in 8 minutes”, and her “note to self” to “kick Steve’s ass”. I noticed the laughing started changing when she said “giving birth was easier than this” and “I am so totally, completely screwed.” At the end, we saw a picture of her and two other people in front of some big rocks. She had her long middle finger straight up in the air, and the laughing got even louder. I’ve noticed that finger really gets humans going, but I’m not sure why.

Then a bunch of people showed a bunch more pictures. It looked like what humans call a “travelogue” to me, but the funny thing was they all looked like they were doing that writing thing again.

The really good thing about all of this is I can just fly around, and check everyone out, with no fear. They’re all too busy to notice little old me.

The best part of the day came next. So, I was right about that lady with all that stuff that wouldn’t fit through the door. She was important, real important! And her name was Paulette.

Her part came next. She said she wore “three hats” except she seemed to be wearing none. The hats were: an Army captain, a social worker, and a teacher. She posted long white sheets all over the room, then everyone got to read books about, guess what….a spider, a worm, and a fly!!!! Humans actually write books about guys like me, and boy, are they funny. My favorite part was the story of Melvin, the fly who gets sick on a regurgitated sandwich, so all his buddies send him a get well card. I also liked the part about the spider “avoiding the wrath of the vacuum cleaner”, and the “worm poop” that “makes plants grow”. Sometimes humans and flies can laugh at the same things.

Paulette, the important lady, seemed to be doing an experiment. I think she was trying to show how something called “science notebooks” help kids learn science better. All the humans loved the drawings of the “life cycle” created by a girl named Mia, but I wasn’t impressed because she left out flies.. How stupid is that?

Everyone applauded after the important lady finished, then everyone was quiet, writing again at those little tables.

The morning was fun for me. While they were so busy with “content area literacy”, whatever that is, I was quietly nibbling on scrumptious chocolate muffins and croissants. Gourmet grub for us flies!

A boss lady named Mary said everyone had “air time” until lunch, and then everyone would meet back in the computer room at 1:40. I hope those muffins are still around then….

1:40. This room is coooool, but where’d those muffins go?. A man named Steve is teaching everybody how to create what he calls a “wikispace” which he shows them on this huge screen. My little fly brain is starting to spin: “no spaces, no capitals, public, protected, private, word walls. unit based discussion, student publishing.” He finally paused, and said, “Wikispace helps me get my act together”. Right about then I was dreaming about those chocolate muffins, then he started up again with “What is love?’ and all these pictures of humans in wierd clothes, kissing and wielding swords. By the time he got to “Film as a Modern Mythology” and student-generated “Code of Ethics”, I was looking for a quick exit. This place might be cool, but where’s the muffins?

Back to the man named Steve, who’s telling everyone about about “coordinating wikis with other districts” and allowing absent Meghan to find an “electronic niche” with the class wiki. He said he “learned this technology by experimenting by the seat of my pants”. How does that work?

The humans were quiet for awhile. I guess they were playing with their wikis. I was safe, but had my eye on the door for a quick exit…so boooring!

Than a lady named Bonnie jazzed it up by telling everyone they had to come back from “cyberland”. She showed everyone how to write on their “SI blogs” . She called what they were writing a “process piece” . I noticed that Paulette, that important lady from the morning, was writing about spiders and flies. She must love us!

The last thing I heard was those two important boss ladies talking about having a glass of wine or a double martini. I know that means the end of the work day in the human world.

Humans sure are wierd, and boring, too. Gotta get out of this “cyberland” so I can at least score some muffin crumbs.

Susan Logger

Digital Documenter: Diane

Logger: Susan