Out of Her Mind -- Musings on Education and Life

Nadia before and after diagnosis: always smiling and STILL GROWING! I am not trying to write a sob story. My goal is to NEVER have to do that. My goal is to rewrite my daughter's story, to give her more time for her exposition, time for the rising action that will allow her to learn more about life and herself in the process, time for experiencing life's conflicts (commonly referred to as milestones and experiences). I want the resolution to be a long time coming; I am not interested in penning her epilogue. My dream is that she'll be around to pen mine. I can not change the fact that my daughter was born with cystic fibrosis. Nor would I have chosen not to have her here living her life, as I could have done had I known after conception that she was sick. In many ways, I am SO thankful that her disease was such a shock to me. Had I known prior to her conception that her father and I were both carriers of the cf gene, I would have felt it unethical to have a ...

"Original exploration of the craft alone expresses a poet's individual soul and conscience" (p. 178, from Ginsberg's Journals: Mid-Fifties 1954-1958). I agree, Ginsberg!  I've spent all of my time until recently exploring poetry alone and have stumbled into my "style" without realizing my cosmic influences, or who it was that paved the way for my eccentricities.  However, I feel that because I chose to leave my official English studies after my B.S. that I know nothing of styles, movements, criticisms, all the nuances the literary types pride themselves on (see, here I go, ending sentences with preopositions).  But I have always read like reading was a drug, and I learn well on my own.  The problem is making the time.  I've loved you, A.G., since my college boyfriend allowed that I could have your book of collected poems after the breakup because I loved it more.  And from you--stylistically--I stole the & and your habit of time, date, and pl...

I think, due to the overwhelming popularity/influence of Faulkner, that to use this name for writing is suicide.  What do you think of pen names?  Are they necessary?  I have been toying with this idea for a long time.  I like the name Della because it was my favorite, departed grandmother's name.  Not sure about the last name.  This pen name is the name I had wanted to name the elusive third child, the one my husband wouldn't let me have. And now I have no uterus, so I really can not have this third child.  I do, however, find myself happy to report that I no longer have said husband.

(Photo from here.) This was meant to be a memorial blog. However, a surprising number of my freshmen don't remember the tragic events of 9-11-2001. Therefore, this is more of a WTF lament blog! I mean, what is this world coming to when the most horrible event in their lifetimes is forgettable? Granted, they were 6 at the time, but isn't it part of our duty to remember and to teach them to remember?  (Photo from here .)      Maybe they don't remember this event or haven't learned about it in school because for most of their lives, we have been at war.  In a climate of violence and unrest, one event might not stand out as much.  When asked what the most important event in their lifetime was so far, one student replied, "Michael Jackson dying has been the most major event so far."  This reply was the most common, beating out Obama's presidency, Hurricane Katrina, 9-11, and other such responses.  Another major event that was predominat...

If you're thinking of lap band surgery, of stomach stapling, of using Alli, of dieting, or of working out, STOP!  Don't act until you read the benefits of being fat!  Really!  Did you know the fatter you are, the less likely you are to be raped?  And you're more likely to "survive malnutrition."  That does it.  Chocolate cookies, here I come.  Bring on the cheese and the Crisco I.V. (Photo from here .) I read some old National Enquirers and other such enlightening tabs at a friend's house recently (outloud).  It made for some fun party talk.  Here's a synopsis of an article entitled:  "20 Great Reasons to Stay Fat" in the Weekly World News , circa December 5, 2000.  It was a good for a few laughs and some, "No they didn'ts!" Here they are: 1.  Beat the cold.   Your fat insulates you from the elements.  (Blubber!) 2.  Ward off malnutrition.   As I always say, the upside is that it will ...

Me--thrilled to be a spectator When I was in college, a boy who will remain nameless (a.k.a. the Italian Stallion) heartfully proclaimed me un -American because I had never watched Star Wars. He even went so far as to say I was communist! Everyone I met those days seemed scandalized by the fact that I had not, would not, watch these films. They just wouldn't take my word for it--I detest(ed) science fiction. It is based on the fantasies of geeks with limited imaginations--ones who base their projections of futuristic people on what they know of life today. Great. What else is there to go on, right? Urggghhh . There's enough going on in reality to occupy me, thank you very much, like which serial killer is on the loose and coming for me, or, back then, whether or not Bill Clinton did, indeed, have sexual relations with that woman. There was the Columbine tragedy to watch on CNN, over and over, and later, there was the whole 9-11 trauma that kept me, like almost every...

11-10-08 Workday, parent conferences. Students who come in love telling their parents about this project. I think I'll invite parents to come in for an "author celebration" or something. Students will present pieces of the finished project on Wednesday. I am excited, just after looking over the few projects I have. These students are the lowest-performing students at the school for one reason or another, and I say this lovingly. I think that they are quite capable; I never lower my expectations! But for those people who think that these types of projects only work with honors or AIG students--I just wanted you to know. Many of them were in summer school, have been retained, are in group homes, have been at the alternative school. I'm excited because they got excited! Of course there were some bumps, but everyone worked on these! I am going to work on a set of questions that will allow for student input on the project--what did they like, what didn't they like, wh...

11-04-08 Election day! Students are taking too long on their first and second genre pieces! They need to work faster. They are also talking TOO much. I am circulating, pointing out to students who think that they are multi-tasking that they are actually sitting and talking with pencil in mid-air. This type of intervention seems to be semi-effective, as I am timing how long some just sit and chat. I hate days like this. Glitter all over genres where it doesn't belong, students sitting in peer conferencing corners without drafts, Ah Ha! I have been giving daily participation grades. That's how I deal with these time-wasters! Those who don't complete what they said they would at the beginning of class are breaking their contracts with me. More mini-lesson on genres--newspaper articles aren't covered in glitter.... Note to self---hide the glitter next year, and beg student examples to help them see finished products. HW : Begin to bring in materials to bind these piece...

11-3-08 The day before the election and students are excited. Some have decided to do an additional piece on this time in their lives because they feel it is so historic. YAY! The willingness and desire to do extra is exactly why I love this project. So, as students conference with me, I keep a chart of the date, what draft we worked on, and what we talked about. I gave a short mini-lesson/review to one girl today about sentence fragments. I also gave her a handout on sf rules and a quick practice sheet to do and bring back to me. I love writer's workshop because it allows me to do embedded grammar instruction individual to each student. My mini-lessons come from these conferences, too, and from my observations. Today's mini-lesson was on the author's notes (also called end notes or reflections). I shared a completed author's note from a student's paper, "I decided to write about my memory as a diary because it shows more feelings and emotions. It's just...

10-31-08 Halloween! What a crazy day to have a controlled-chaos type of project going on, especially since our students are allowed to dress up! Today, students shared the genres they brought in. We looked at a menu from a Chinese restaurant. It had the restaurant's name, address, telephone number, and business hours on the front, as well as an attractive picture. It folded in two, with printing on all possible sides. The courses were broken up into appetizers, lunch and dinner specials, drinks, side items. There were pictures of the more popular items, and each item had a tantalizing description and a price. Then, we talked about how a menu might be used to share a story or a moment from our lives. One boy decided to use a menu to write about his favorite Thanksgiving, rather than the journal format he had chosen. He decided that he could title the menu "A Pendley Thanksgiving, 2007" and that he could, as part of the description, list who cooked the food. I liked the id...

10-30-08 Another part of writer's workshop is to start each class with a relevant mini-lesson. As I observed yesterday, some of the students really didn't still quite "get" how genres differed from one another. One student worked on a wanted poster that was about a dog that he had lost. When he started the final draft, he promptly covered the edges in glitter ! So, in today's mini-lesson, I used that as an example and we talked about why a poster looking for a lost dog wouldn't be covered in glitter. We talked about what it WOULD look like--it would probably say "Lost Dog" or "Missing Dog" in large letters at the top. It would probably have a description of the dog and would include a picture. It would be neatly written so people could read it. The dog's name would be included. A phone number to reach the owners would be listed on the poster ( flyer ) and could even be on tear-off strips at the bottom. Among the facts would be where the...

10-29-08 Today we started writer's workshop in earnest. Yesterday we went over the rules of the workshop (which I'll try to link here). The main rule is that students at their seats can not talk with one another. They can, however, go to the peer conferencing corners to quietly discuss drafts in progress. Once they have conferenced , they must fill out a conference sheet and attach it to the appropriate draft in their learning logs. Also, I have a basket on my desk that students can put drafts in for me to look at. But when they come to work with me, they must read their drafts aloud. It's amazing the errors they catch on their own this way, and having them read to me allows me to focus on content and form rather than conventions. I started off the class with a status-of-the-class meeting. This meeting is important in writer's workshop because it establishes the routine, allows me a record-keeping device, and allows the students to see where other students are at in ...

10-28-08 Today, students finished their planning. They picked four of their memories that they really wanted to write about and began making the hard decisions. They had to decide which genre(s) they wanted to use to write about each memory and then write a 1-2 sentence statement explaining why they had made that specific genre choice. (These statements about genre choice later become part of their author's notes in the final product.) After I modeled this part of the process, I just walked around the room and observed, stopping to help students at this juncture who seemed particularly stumped. For example, one of my students lost her baby brother several years ago to a tragic accident--he was run over by a family member in the driveway. This student at first wanted to write an obituary to show her memory. In her rationale, she wrote, "Obituaries are how we show that someone died." When I talked to her about the genre format, s...

A Word Cloud of Key Words from this Blog Post 10-27-08 Wow! The kids were excited about this project! It was hard turning the class over to the writer's workshop format, even though I fully believe in it, and I've done it before! ( update: I now ONLY teach using a writer's workshop format.  It has revolutionized my teaching and my students' engagement and therefore their learning) We started class today with an overview of the project, a discussion of what memoir is, and brainstorms about our lives. Some of the students had a hard time feeling that they had anything to write about, although I stressed to them that their memories don't have to be tragic or adventurous or whatever to be important. I modeled this portion on the board as I did a simple brainstorm of things that had occurred in my life that I might like to write about (using a list format).   Students are to do all of their planning and drafting in their learning logs, the spiral bound books they ...

A Word Cloud of Key Words from this Post MultiGenre Memoir--My Daily Reflections and Lessons (Click on the title for a link to PART of my multigenre memoir at ASU) Time--2 weeks 90 minutes a day Level--9th grade English 1 (easily adaptable) I started this memoir project two weeks ago. We began work on our projects after students read Tears of a Tiger , by Sharon Draper. They loved the book, by the way. Throughout the reading, we had meaningful and authentic discussions about the author's use of genre, why for instance she opened the book with a news article that objectively discusses the tragic car accident before she flashed back to conversation in the locker room beforehand. The following notes are from my observations in and after class as we worked on the project. This particular project was completed with two year-long English 9/Reading classes. The highest reading level is 6th grade, and many of the students are EC, ELL, or 504. I adapted this project from http:/...