School's Out For Summer....

School is out... and looks like it will stay out. I loved this past year. It was one of the most rewarding experiences I've had as a teacher. It was insanely crazy!

I worked for a small private Islamic School in our community. I'm not Muslim. I'm not sure what I am, but needless to say, I do not follow any set religion. Coexistence perhaps? Regardless, it was simply a secondary aspect to getting to teach at a school where there were very high expectations for student achievement and teacher skill.  It was a chance I jumped at.

The school was small. It was so small, that if one teacher was absent, we all had to cover for each other. We had no substitutes. We were the subs. At least two to three days a week, my prep time was spent covering another class. It meant I was able to work at every grade level through the year, a fabulous opportunity to see the progression children go through day in and day out from kindergarten to high school. 

For my own personal reasons, I was most thankful for the support and encouragement to teach in cutting edge ways.  Over the years, I've been able to develop patterns and strategies for getting students to ask the important questions that drive their learning. This year, I was able to further refine my approach to an integrated curriculum. As a result, my students generated wonderful unique works to display what they had learned.

Of course, one of the most proud examples I have of that is each student's paperback copy of their NaNoWriMo. They arrived yesterday.  I've been re-reading them, remembering the conversations with individual children about how to drive the story, how to edit a phrase, how to format the page in Word, etc. The learning that went on during that project was incredible. In so many ways it wasn't about writing. It was about taking a risk, asking a question of one's self and going on an adventure. That adventure motivated the kids to WANT to get out red pens and edit! Can you imagine it? --Kids who WANT to find commas, draw red lines, circle misspelled words, and reformat entire sentences.... Its a joy!

Next week, I'll send out the NaNo books. Some students live close enough to drive by and hand deliver. It will be a final farewell. It doesn't look like the school will continue next year. I'd like to be there. But, school is out. I'm out of a job and out looking. Given this article regarding the Sacramento region, the prospects for the school like FCS aren't good.

But, I'm a teacher. I'll find a way to teach-- and trust that the right one will be there for me.

Nano Let Down

I didn't make my Nano goal this year. I got to a little over 33k in words and life just had too much on my plate to get much more. I'm very happy with the story I started though.

I'm ecstatic about the success of my students. Yesterday we did a lot of writing in class. I had some oatmeal cookies and we wrote until our fingers hurt. Half of my students met their word count goal. All reached over 2500 words and two got over 7,000!!! Now its time to dish out prizes and begin the editing.

All of the kids today didn't feel relieved NaNo was over. They all felt a little let down. They actually have more to write, more stories to tell. Once you unleash the creativity by putting the inner editor in its rightful place, imagination flows so much more readily.  It is time though to bring out Inner Editors out and let them play. I unleashed the codes for StudentPublishing.com and now they are excited to edit.

Tomorrow, its all about the red pen. :-)

New Year's Resolutions for Teachers

Five quick tips for teachers to implement in the New Year.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/6069470/teacher_tips_new_years_resolutions.html?cat=4

Too busy writing

Nano takes time. It takes far more time than many can imagine. Today, my students had the pleasure of meeting an author through a school assembly. They had some very interesting questions for him.  Most notably, when he shared the page length of his stories, my students wanted to know, "how many words is that?" They were very impressed to know that his published children's stories of about 10,000 words were very within their own grasp of accomplishment.

At this time, I have three of the 9 students in my class over 6,000 words and one of them over 8,500. These students are working on goals of 7,500 to 10,000.  They should each be able to make goals. Everyone however will be a winner. Even those working towards 5,000 words are nearly there. I couldn't be more proud of them. But, as we prepare to be absent for four days starting Thursday, I'm trying to keep them motivated by talking about taking the story to the climax, creating a resolution and an ending. 


On my own writing front, my Nano has been seriously neglected. I'm at a paltry 20,000 in words with much to go. I doubt I will make it, but the joy of seeing nine young minds through the process instead of matching my own goals is worth it. For myself, there is December. I can Nano in spirit any time I please.

Besides, next month I should be able to work on editing two stories I have written which will go to print for Twin Trinity Media. I'll be able to call myself a published author. Next project on the list is to create my own author web site--a blog perhaps. However, blogs require dedication. Its not that I'm not dedicated. I am extremely dedicated to the care of my horses, the care of my husband-to-be, and of the wide variety of interests I share with him. For more on that, see our urban homesteading blog, Sustainable In Suburbia.

For all you teachers out there with as many plates spinning as I do, keep it going. One thing is for certain, I am never at a loss for stories to share, experiences to relate and ways to relate to the children in my classes.

1 Week Countdown

On Friday, my class hit the "plot rollercoaster" pages of their NaNo workbooks. As we discussed plots, inciting incidents, rising action, climax and falling action, they started to get the "oh-oh's" the sound kids make when they raise hands and can barely contain a thought or question. I heard the first couple of "this-is-funs" and today I am excited to be putting up our word count poster, assigning word count contracts and getting the final push towards the starting line next Monday morning.

I'm mid-planning on two works for myself--a total of 100,000 words. One is a youth novel and the other a mainstream fiction written in magic realism, my favorite genre. Today, Scrivener debuts the beta version for Windows. And, I am anxious to download it to play tonight. My charts and graphs are creating a grand clutter of notebook, loose binder paper pages, and assorted napkins. Its an organizational explosion I don't dare show my students who I'm insisting keep a quite neat binder with pockets and spaces to keep all their goodies in one tidy place.

Teacher's With Wild Ideas

I had a very entertaining High School Biology teacher. He began our AP Bio class Senior year by throwing sheep hearts across the room to students who answered some random bio related trivia questions correctly.  Of course, we didn't realize this was the prize until the first correct response was uttered.  I remember with vivid sensation the excitement I held daily walking to his class.

Now that I'm a teacher, I get an equal rush out of creating wild rollercoaster moments with my students. This is easy to do when I direct science club each week. Social studies often lends itself to these experiences too. Like measuring out the dimensions of Christopher Columbus' ships and drawing them in chalk on the pavement then assigning "jobs" on deck and setting sail for a class period while imagining months confined to such a vessel in unknown waters with unknown dangers lurking ahead.

Reading instantly takes us to new places, but writing can be approached so dryly as to leave students begging to write as few sentences as possible in their next paragraph. The word "paragraph" alone can elicit sighs and moans.

Today, I put a bunch of "parts" cut-out from various sources and put them on the board. I said to my class, "I need a new character for a story. Can you help me make one?" We picked head shapes (there were a few animals and inanimate objects in the mix), eyes, hair, horns, ears, headwear, bodies (again animals and inanimate objects were present) and on and on... pretty soon we came up with a character that would take a lot of sentences to describe thoroughly. "It" had more than several interesting attributes that could help or hinder it on a long adventure. I then handed over the concept to them. They pondered silently (a rare moment of absolute hear-a-pin-drop silence in a 5th grade classroom) and then a blank piece of paper with a set of cut-outs along with some 'blanks' for them to make their own ideas. Of course, a couple of the artistic types were stifled by cut-paste characters and set right to drawing away as their minds would take them, but my less than skilled technicians loved it. Cut, paste, re-arrange, research, draw in a few bits here and 9 characters entered our rooms. Not all had names, but  many were already named by the time their figures were formed. It was easy for the kids then to start writing away the answers to the Main Character Questionairre's in the YWP Workbook. 

They all wanted to make another. I gave no reaction and sent them on to their Karate class. Tomorrow.... supporting characters and VILLIANS!! *bwahahaha*

NaNo Packs

The Young Writer's Program does a great job of sending out cool packs, with buttons stickers, and a progress poster. I decided to take it one step further. WalMart had a great deal on 100pg spiral notebooks with a colorful multi-hued starship shaped type mosaic on them--think bright enough to stand out and not get lost. I purchased nine of them and a bunch of mid-range black ink pens with a soft grip. Each student will start with one of each of those. There is a nice blank piece of paper just behind the cover for pasting the image of their main character (MC) on one side, and a "cover" on the other. I've been working on some ideas for the novel I'm writing NOT with my class.

For some odd reason, I've decided that in spite of my insane life these days, I'll pull together enough writing minutes and inspiration to do two novels.  At the moment, I'm completely absorbed in the idea for my non-YWP novel. Adventuresome archeologist on a mission to make her parents proud, lost in the search for love, meets ancient Aztec legends, some unkown undead, and a handful of missing people with nothing but blood left behind.

The kid and classroom safe novel features a pegasus born with wings much too tiny for flying. Unfortunately, he is to be king, but can't fly across the alabaster wall into the kingdom of his forebearers and take his rightful place on the throne. It will go to a villianous treasonous peg, looking for nothing but power. Our hero must enlist the help of some horses to teach him how to make it over the wall without his wings. After years of being considered lowly to the pegs, who will help him and even if they do, how will he ever make it?

Ahhh... story telling. :-) There are infinite possibilities. The limit really is one's imagination.