Ok, last post for a while. I really like these three slides from this slide deck:
Archives for November 2011
Thinking About
If Once You Have Slept on an Island
If once you have slept on an island
You’ll never quite be the same;
You may look as you looked the day before
And go by the same old name.
You may bustle about in street and shop,
You may sit at home and sew,
But you’ll see blue water and wheeling gulls
Wherever your feet may go.
You may chat with the neighbors of this and that
And close to your fire keep
But you’ll hear ship whistle and lighthouse bell
And tides beat through your sleep.
Oh, you won’t know why, and you can’t say how
Such a change upon you came,
But – once you’ve slept on an island
You’ll never quite be the same.
Rachel Field
iPad
I never thought I would be linking to this….really. But I am finding I am spending more and more time with this thing. So here is a great resource for iPads in Education.
Downtown Writing
Adding these unpublished posts that have been sitting in my drafts folder…
Angela Stockman does amazing work with her young writers, and I’ve been following her work for sometime. Here she connects writing with thinking and classroom culture.
Her work with Communities for Learning is something else I’m exploring. My mind is whirling around the possibilities for something similar here in town….
Downtown Writing? Hmmmm…..
Toast Rules
I love Patti Digh. A couple of years ago, I read Life is a Verb, and I’ve been following her ever since. This post is one of my favs–Toast Rules.
The best line: “Well,” I said sweetly, “I just never knew you could actually go past toast time. Call me crazy, but it seems to me that if you have bread and a toaster, it’s pretty much always toast time.”
She’s referencing a restaurant that has rules about when to serve toast. As I read it again, I was reminded of the course I am taking at P2PU, Writing and the Common Core, led by Bud Hunt. We are reading and commenting on the Common Core standards for writing, and writing together as we think about what this means to us as teachers.
It’s great fun, both being in community and sharing ideas about writing.
When I happened upon Patti’s essay again today, I was reminded about writing rules and how they limit us.
“Don’t start sentences with AND,” or “Never write a fragment.” Often, students become so hung up on following the rules (and making sure they have the five-paragraph essay down pat) that their writing is boring, gutless, and drab. I say, listen to Patti.
It’s always writing time, served up with voice and style.