Monday, July 6, 2015
Thursday, July 2, 2015
Portfolio Share
What a memorable experience! The oral readings to the computer-based readings, looking at the diversity of work and thinking is splendid!
Even reading all the entries, knowing the people and what they've shared over the past week, brings the writing to life in magical ways. To see pieces grow from infancy to maturing, reflections the desire and passion of everyone aspiring to write.
Well done work by all.
A pleasure to be amongst such incredible talent
Closing Moment on Closing Day
Naomi Shihab Nye
Shared a poem at the Boothbay Literacy Retreat offered by Kylene Beers and Bob Probst (Heinemann).
This a chinese student who attended a school specifically designed to send Chinese students to Universities in English Speaking countries.
The poem was submitted and taken for "Flow." This is a trifold placard (menu) that is given to patient's during hospital stays. Some read these poems as the are patient's patiently waiting for food and their hospital stay to end.
The poem, the first one, is her first ever written in English.
I use this poem as a reminder, that as well all depart ISFI for the summer, wondering if we may ever be published, just look around, your opportunity awaits you!
Please enjoy!
http://www.poetryireland.ie/content/files/Menu_of_Poems.pdf
Kara reading "with passion"!
Many people asked to have a copy of this video of my friend's granddaughter reading her picture book. At the young age of 13 months, she demonstrates that if you read to children as soon as possible they do pick up on the Concepts of Print - i.e. books carry meaning, in order to read a book you turn the pages from left to right, your voice carries inflection as you read, a book is read from top to bottom and front to back. So many of our kindergarten students do not enter school with basic skills because they are not read to on a daily basis.
Kara reading "with passion"!
Kara reading "with passion"!
What to do with SMWP! (After the Institute)
Young Authors Camp
* one week camp (16-20 hrs)
* 8 Students minimum
* Writing marathon done with kids!
* Closing & Opening moments
* Not just for struggling writers, open to all!!
* USM & SMWP does alot of the leg work for you.
Nurturing Self as a Writer
* Burnt Island Writing Retreat, Aug 4-6
* Chance to write alot, relax, be with like minded people, become one with nature.
* Chance to come up with ideas talking with other writers and teachers, over dinner and Bocce.
* $350 for three days (included a place to sleep & food. Unless you want to sleep in your car?)
* There is an octagonal table!
*Monthly Writing Group
*Meets a few times over the year, tries to be once a month.
*Opportunity to share the variety of writing.
Continued Professional Groups
* Sharing work with others, spreading the SMWP "way"
* Building capacity for writing instruction
* What's not done that you can make possible!
* Chance to represent your school; show off your institute work.
* Conferences, mainly TC people, very positive.
* Modest stipend for offer workshops at places, institute facilitators, if asked.
* USM/SMWP there to back you for some entrepreneurship's?
* Study Groups, TC's can take the lead (empowerment) to answer questions, institute practice.
* Grass roots initiatives.
Check your e-mail. Group e-mails will becoming!!
* one week camp (16-20 hrs)
* 8 Students minimum
* Writing marathon done with kids!
* Closing & Opening moments
* Not just for struggling writers, open to all!!
* USM & SMWP does alot of the leg work for you.
Nurturing Self as a Writer
* Burnt Island Writing Retreat, Aug 4-6
* Chance to write alot, relax, be with like minded people, become one with nature.
* Chance to come up with ideas talking with other writers and teachers, over dinner and Bocce.
* $350 for three days (included a place to sleep & food. Unless you want to sleep in your car?)
* There is an octagonal table!
*Monthly Writing Group
*Meets a few times over the year, tries to be once a month.
*Opportunity to share the variety of writing.
Continued Professional Groups
* Sharing work with others, spreading the SMWP "way"
* Building capacity for writing instruction
* What's not done that you can make possible!
* Chance to represent your school; show off your institute work.
* Conferences, mainly TC people, very positive.
* Modest stipend for offer workshops at places, institute facilitators, if asked.
* USM/SMWP there to back you for some entrepreneurship's?
* Study Groups, TC's can take the lead (empowerment) to answer questions, institute practice.
* Grass roots initiatives.
Check your e-mail. Group e-mails will becoming!!
Saying good bye to writing time.
Can you tell we are all thinking about 12:15?
No, not lunch time... but the portfolio share. Writing time has become an exciting dash of urgency as we try to make sure links work, presentation appeal is present, and the writing is enjoyed by all.
Good Luck everyone. Enjoy the ride!
No, not lunch time... but the portfolio share. Writing time has become an exciting dash of urgency as we try to make sure links work, presentation appeal is present, and the writing is enjoyed by all.
Good Luck everyone. Enjoy the ride!
A Fun use for Wordle
In My Classroom we use Wordle sometimes to make predictions about what we are about to read. Copy and paste an entire chapter into a Wordle, and have the students make predictions about what is going to happen in the upcoming reading.
In the beginning of the story, their guesses are all over the map. As they meet the characters and understand their relationships a bit more their predictions get scarily accurate.
In My Classroom we use Wordle sometimes to make predictions about what we are about to read. Copy and paste an entire chapter into a Wordle, and have the students make predictions about what is going to happen in the upcoming reading.
In the beginning of the story, their guesses are all over the map. As they meet the characters and understand their relationships a bit more their predictions get scarily accurate.
Final Day
It's our final day of the summer writing project and Justin greeted our writers with scrambled eggs! As we wrestle with computer settings so we can share our final portfolios and battle with USM over registrations and our electronic evaluation, we prepare to share one last piece of writing. I look forward to hearing from this community of learners, feeling I know them all just a little more intimately, after hearing their learning biographies. I know my writing group - Kerstin with her quiet demeanor yet descriptive writing; Ben with his deliciously devious Demetrious Duke and Alex our deep, dark many-layered muse. Although we part now, we can look forward to seeing each other again in the fall - recounting more adventures and stories of our lives!
Mary Lou
Mary Lou
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
Hi Mary,
This is for you:
“A friend of mine says that the first draft is the downdraft--you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft--you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it’s loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy.” (p. 26, Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott)
This is for you:
“A friend of mine says that the first draft is the downdraft--you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft--you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it’s loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy.” (p. 26, Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott)
Wednesday, July1 afternoon
Revision Workshop with Leah & Anne
Goals:
Shared thinking about revision, why it is valuable, and how to facilitate it
Generate ideas to use in your writing groups, with colleagues, and with students
Sharing - "what does word revision mean to each of us?"
Sharing - "what does revision mean to your students?"
-noted difference between editing(mechanics) & revising(words & ideas)
-some give revision checklists
-colored pencils for particular problems
Re vision - look at writing in new ways
Writing is a PROCESS
presenters
-have students find acknowledgements by author
top, collaborate, listen
-Stop occasionally to thick aout how your piece is progressing
-Collaborate with friends and peers to improve your work
-Listen to their advice and also to your own thoughts about the progress of your writing
How do you know if your writing is finished?
-Is your piece--> raw extremely personal?
-Are you still-->writing to learn?
But when the piece feels important, can speak to others, then it may be ready for revision
Remember to consistently ask yourself: Is this piece of writing all it could be?
To the revisers: Make sure to separate the writer from...............the writing
Make sure to create an environment where it is SAFE to SHARE
Honor your work: REVISE
Strategies:
-list #1: essay content
-list #2: style, sentences, & grammar
-Flipped Paragraph - compare 2 versions, example can help students see how sentence changes
when important/powerful sentence is placed in a new location
-narrative essay peer review
-questions for peer to use after reading paper
-revising for sentences and clarity
-bless, address, press
-writer's questions can help reviser focus his attention
-group revision - teacher sets up structure, writer/presenter pitches to group, group has protocol to
follow, then presenter comes back
-important to teach students how to give good feedback - words & body language important to
practice in a safe place, learn to interact positively in the world, model these ideas first before
students begin to try this on their own
Group work - revising a piece
-don't name writer by name
-what moments stand out?
-what type of mood does the piece describe?
-most exciting, intense, or energetic sentence?
-wait time - super important
-monitor yourself
-cue card might help younger student with sentence starter
-ask "was that helpful?"
-teacher needs to encourage attentiveness in readers
Divided into writing groups
Reading Discussion - "teaching writing" book talk, useful strategies
-Write for Insight - teacher friendly, easy to flip through and find techniques to use
-writing to learn - summarize the main idea of a lesson, have them switch pens to the opposite
hand, makes us focus on using our hand than on what you want to convey, important to be
fluent writers
-After THE END
-asking questions throughout the writing process
-The Story of My Thinking, diverse reactions
-kerneling, taking a small detail and expanding it
-Write Like This
-one idea was "evaluate and judge," focusing on having a real world purpose for writing
-Craft Lessons
-divided by grade levels, millions of ideas, all very good
-Writing Reminders
-much good information, type of book you go back to for different types of lessons
-encourage students to be independent of us, useful ideas before, during, after
Tomorrow
-longer writing time
-how you can get involved with SMWP beyond the Invitational
-hammer out your plan for your project with your mentor
-portfolio sharing
Closing Moment - quote from This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. In this book the author shares how she became a writer. The quote relates to how difficult it is for writers to make a living.
Revision Workshop with Leah & Anne
Goals:
Shared thinking about revision, why it is valuable, and how to facilitate it
Generate ideas to use in your writing groups, with colleagues, and with students
Sharing - "what does word revision mean to each of us?"
Sharing - "what does revision mean to your students?"
-noted difference between editing(mechanics) & revising(words & ideas)
-some give revision checklists
-colored pencils for particular problems
Re vision - look at writing in new ways
Writing is a PROCESS
presenters
-have students find acknowledgements by author
top, collaborate, listen
-Stop occasionally to thick aout how your piece is progressing
-Collaborate with friends and peers to improve your work
-Listen to their advice and also to your own thoughts about the progress of your writing
How do you know if your writing is finished?
-Is your piece--> raw extremely personal?
-Are you still-->writing to learn?
But when the piece feels important, can speak to others, then it may be ready for revision
Remember to consistently ask yourself: Is this piece of writing all it could be?
To the revisers: Make sure to separate the writer from...............the writing
Make sure to create an environment where it is SAFE to SHARE
Honor your work: REVISE
Strategies:
-list #1: essay content
-list #2: style, sentences, & grammar
-Flipped Paragraph - compare 2 versions, example can help students see how sentence changes
when important/powerful sentence is placed in a new location
-narrative essay peer review
-questions for peer to use after reading paper
-revising for sentences and clarity
-bless, address, press
-writer's questions can help reviser focus his attention
-group revision - teacher sets up structure, writer/presenter pitches to group, group has protocol to
follow, then presenter comes back
-important to teach students how to give good feedback - words & body language important to
practice in a safe place, learn to interact positively in the world, model these ideas first before
students begin to try this on their own
Group work - revising a piece
-don't name writer by name
-what moments stand out?
-what type of mood does the piece describe?
-most exciting, intense, or energetic sentence?
-wait time - super important
-monitor yourself
-cue card might help younger student with sentence starter
-ask "was that helpful?"
-teacher needs to encourage attentiveness in readers
Divided into writing groups
Reading Discussion - "teaching writing" book talk, useful strategies
-Write for Insight - teacher friendly, easy to flip through and find techniques to use
-writing to learn - summarize the main idea of a lesson, have them switch pens to the opposite
hand, makes us focus on using our hand than on what you want to convey, important to be
fluent writers
-After THE END
-asking questions throughout the writing process
-The Story of My Thinking, diverse reactions
-kerneling, taking a small detail and expanding it
-Write Like This
-one idea was "evaluate and judge," focusing on having a real world purpose for writing
-Craft Lessons
-divided by grade levels, millions of ideas, all very good
-Writing Reminders
-much good information, type of book you go back to for different types of lessons
-encourage students to be independent of us, useful ideas before, during, after
Tomorrow
-longer writing time
-how you can get involved with SMWP beyond the Invitational
-hammer out your plan for your project with your mentor
-portfolio sharing
Closing Moment - quote from This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. In this book the author shares how she became a writer. The quote relates to how difficult it is for writers to make a living.
Coaching Conversations
Check out this link about Coaching Conversations in Digital Spaces.
Coaching in the digital world
I found this in my Diigo feed.
Coaching in the digital world
I found this in my Diigo feed.
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
Morning-
Margi's Quote - "We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection." Anais Nin
TMT - Screen - Cast - o - matic, Wordle, Printfriendly
*Ways to Use Wordle - note taking, good-bye to a student that is leaving, writing self-assessment, community building activity, predicting activity before reading a class book
For tomorrow - come with ideas about your final project, portfolios will be shared in a quiet manner, everyone will share one piece from their portfolio
Digital Writing - graphics, words, connection to world, blogs, tweet (secret language), texting (speech?), blogs, facebook, ibooks, ebooks, multi genre writing (one topic with different genres - each piece is moving a story forward)
*allowing students to write in different ways, the skills are still there
*teach the writing, teach the technology, lesson development still there
*different avenues for writing
*still using tried and true methods
*make writing public
*we need to meet students where they are
*needs to be culturally relevant
*the landscape of where students are writing is the digital landscape
*students writing more than ever, now
*as a teacher, what is the objective of lesson - tech based helpful or not?
*offer digital writing as a choice
*using technology in the classroom has different levels - more depth as time goes on - SAMR - "Swimming Pool" - Substitution, Augmentation, modification, redefinition
*personal and craft piece - both - building a writing community in the classroom - how to do that? we want them to put their work out there and make it public.
*Quiet Classroom - write, share, comment - everyone has a chance to share - introverts and extroverts
*Today's Meet - a running record - literature writing, assign writing and then they can write right away. They can record their thinking right off and share later. CONVERSATION between kids, teacher
*Choose a room name, time, who can join?
*can ask a question - start off with responses
*writing lessons can be embedded
*write in full letters, rather than as texting
Socrative - quizzing platform
*can be used with DOL, exit tix, t/f quizzes, multiple choice quizzes, short answer quizzes.
Example of using Socrative - "Write the best alliterative sentence." Have everyone vote. Pick a mentor sentence together.
*can use at the beginning - help students to learn structure and refine it, practice
Beth Holland - writing 1.0 - paper - story web, conferencing, write, peer edit, draft, etc.
writing 2.0- the same teaching points as 1.0, but now using technology to make the writing transparent, more public, gets more people involved in the writing process, can give a purposeful authentic audience
Thinglink - allows you to take a picture and create related buttons/links.
**Technology allows students to use the traditional writing process, but to make their thinking multidimensional. It also gives them the opportunity to share their work with the world and to engage in coversation about their work and the work of others. For the reader, it can make topics more engaging. It allows both the creator and receivor to engage in multiple learning styles.
Morning-
Margi's Quote - "We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection." Anais Nin
TMT - Screen - Cast - o - matic, Wordle, Printfriendly
*Ways to Use Wordle - note taking, good-bye to a student that is leaving, writing self-assessment, community building activity, predicting activity before reading a class book
For tomorrow - come with ideas about your final project, portfolios will be shared in a quiet manner, everyone will share one piece from their portfolio
Digital Writing - graphics, words, connection to world, blogs, tweet (secret language), texting (speech?), blogs, facebook, ibooks, ebooks, multi genre writing (one topic with different genres - each piece is moving a story forward)
*allowing students to write in different ways, the skills are still there
*teach the writing, teach the technology, lesson development still there
*different avenues for writing
*still using tried and true methods
*make writing public
*we need to meet students where they are
*needs to be culturally relevant
*the landscape of where students are writing is the digital landscape
*students writing more than ever, now
*as a teacher, what is the objective of lesson - tech based helpful or not?
*offer digital writing as a choice
*using technology in the classroom has different levels - more depth as time goes on - SAMR - "Swimming Pool" - Substitution, Augmentation, modification, redefinition
*personal and craft piece - both - building a writing community in the classroom - how to do that? we want them to put their work out there and make it public.
*Quiet Classroom - write, share, comment - everyone has a chance to share - introverts and extroverts
*Today's Meet - a running record - literature writing, assign writing and then they can write right away. They can record their thinking right off and share later. CONVERSATION between kids, teacher
*Choose a room name, time, who can join?
*can ask a question - start off with responses
*writing lessons can be embedded
*write in full letters, rather than as texting
Socrative - quizzing platform
*can be used with DOL, exit tix, t/f quizzes, multiple choice quizzes, short answer quizzes.
Example of using Socrative - "Write the best alliterative sentence." Have everyone vote. Pick a mentor sentence together.
*can use at the beginning - help students to learn structure and refine it, practice
Beth Holland - writing 1.0 - paper - story web, conferencing, write, peer edit, draft, etc.
writing 2.0- the same teaching points as 1.0, but now using technology to make the writing transparent, more public, gets more people involved in the writing process, can give a purposeful authentic audience
Thinglink - allows you to take a picture and create related buttons/links.
**Technology allows students to use the traditional writing process, but to make their thinking multidimensional. It also gives them the opportunity to share their work with the world and to engage in coversation about their work and the work of others. For the reader, it can make topics more engaging. It allows both the creator and receivor to engage in multiple learning styles.
An Attempt at a Haiku
I must have been inspired by the poets in my writing group. When I woke up this morning, I was inspired to try writing a Haiku. Here is my attempt:
His cool nose snuggles
Into the nape of my neck.
Damp as morning dew.
This little guy was also my inspiration -
His cool nose snuggles
Into the nape of my neck.
Damp as morning dew.
This little guy was also my inspiration -
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