I'm pretty sure that there were good things that happened in March and April but it somehow escaped me to record them. We started spending evenings working in the yard, only eating when the sun began to set. My sister visited from Texas, I taught some great poetry lessons, finished a class, and ran a race for the first time in a long time. Good months. May has been more difficult for this girl. The preparing for and administering the End of Grade testing sucks the joy out of teaching. Despite the stress, there were all sorts of wonderful things.
1- Steel Magnolias at Triad Stage. I might or might not have shed a tear.
2- I called the government with a question and stumped them. Kind of proud of that.
3- Made this killer mustard sauce for roasted veggies.
4- Had the mustard sauce again with a fresh salad from the garden.
5- The Nasturtium and Foxglove that I grew from seed are both blooming.
6- I fell asleep on the couch at 8 on a Friday night. It just felt good.
7- The house is clean.
8- Took a nap and watched a movie.
9- Melissa gave me a chocolate chip muffin.
10- My 1st period tested today and they worked SO hard.
11- Things could be worse. There could be a floods, earthquakes, wars, or wildfires. Instead, there are only EOGs.
12- Mustard Sauce and Roasted Veggies again.
13- Dinner at the Hodgekins with friends and neighbors.
14- Cleaned the pollen off the porch and had dinner out there.
15- A quiet afternoon.
16- I went with Ross to the driving range. (That's what it's called when you practice hitting golf balls, right?)
17- My MIL brought some incredible snacks for EOGs.
18- Got a new library book but I had a fine. Boo.
19- MIL brought gourmet cupcakes to EOGs for my birthday!
20- Ross gave me a Norman Rockwell print for my bday.
21- A suprise trip to the mountains. Spent the day exploring Black Mountain.
22- Sat in a rocking chair reading on Thomas Wolfe's front porch in Asheville.
23- Another fresh salad from the garden.
24- Class started tonight -- very encouraging!
25- I vegged tonight, literally did nothing except watch tv.
26- R has been gone a few nights but is home.
27 -PTSA fed us lunch.
28- Made an excellent veggie pizza with the last of last summer's pesto.
29- Watching Ross, his dad, and his sister laugh until they cried at lunch.
30- Italian soda with a friend at Spring Garden Bakery.
31- Last of the testing for me for 2011. I ought to be able to eat lunch before 2 for the rest of the year.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
Final Letter
Dear students,
Welcome to sixth grade Language Arts! My name is Mrs. Cameron. I can distinctly remember my first day of sixth grade and my Language Arts class. Dressed in my favorite white shorts with pink polka dots, I was both nervous and curious. Who would my friends be? What would my teachers be like? Everything turned out fine. In fact, some of the friends I made in sixth grade were my closest friends all through high school. These friendships remained with me but so did my experiences in school as a reader and writer. If you can believe it, they shaped who I am today. My hope is that your experience in sixth grade will have the same lasting impact.
In my class, I have high expectations for you as a reader and writer. Most importantly, I expect you to be a more skilled reader at the end of this year than you were at the beginning. This means that you should be able to read and understand a variety of genres, such as fictional novels, non-fiction articles, text books, poetry, how-to articles, plays, and “testing” text. You should improve your abilities to find the meanings of unknown words, clarify confusing parts, determine important information, make connections, and find the right resources to answer the questions you have. Good readers do these things regularly. In short, I want us to be good readers.
To do this, here are a few tips to follow that will help you succeed.
1. Seek to understand what we are reading or viewing. Understanding takes an active effort. It can be hard work but it is important work! If you aren’t engaged, you will not grow as a reader.
2. Take initiative. It means being responsible for your own growth as a reader. Throughout the year, ask yourself, “How am I doing? What do I need to be successful? How can I challenge myself in a new way?”
3. Imagine yourself as a reader and writer in the future. Do you want to keep statistics as a manager for a sports team? Do you want to help with yearbook? Could you write stories for our morning news show? Could you compete in Quiz Bowl next year? Then brainstorm what you need to do to get there.
For me, the thing that caught my attention and got me involved as a reader in middle school was Battle of the Books. I enjoyed reading books before but being involved in this competition was different. The book list was full of interesting young adult literature that I’d never been exposed to before. For the first time, I got to talk about books I was reading with other kids my age. It sparked something new in me that has influenced who I am today. I still enjoy reading a good book and talking about it with my friends. I don’t compete any more but I do go to a Book Club at the library.
Who you are as a reader and writer this year can shape who you become as a grown up. I want you to grow up to be curious, engaged, and mindful adults. I want you to have the skills and tools you need to participate fully and contribute positively to your world. Don’t underestimate how important your involvement as a reader is this year. You’ll be surprised to see how you’ve changed at the end of the year!
Welcome to sixth grade Language Arts! My name is Mrs. Cameron. I can distinctly remember my first day of sixth grade and my Language Arts class. Dressed in my favorite white shorts with pink polka dots, I was both nervous and curious. Who would my friends be? What would my teachers be like? Everything turned out fine. In fact, some of the friends I made in sixth grade were my closest friends all through high school. These friendships remained with me but so did my experiences in school as a reader and writer. If you can believe it, they shaped who I am today. My hope is that your experience in sixth grade will have the same lasting impact.
In my class, I have high expectations for you as a reader and writer. Most importantly, I expect you to be a more skilled reader at the end of this year than you were at the beginning. This means that you should be able to read and understand a variety of genres, such as fictional novels, non-fiction articles, text books, poetry, how-to articles, plays, and “testing” text. You should improve your abilities to find the meanings of unknown words, clarify confusing parts, determine important information, make connections, and find the right resources to answer the questions you have. Good readers do these things regularly. In short, I want us to be good readers.
To do this, here are a few tips to follow that will help you succeed.
1. Seek to understand what we are reading or viewing. Understanding takes an active effort. It can be hard work but it is important work! If you aren’t engaged, you will not grow as a reader.
2. Take initiative. It means being responsible for your own growth as a reader. Throughout the year, ask yourself, “How am I doing? What do I need to be successful? How can I challenge myself in a new way?”
3. Imagine yourself as a reader and writer in the future. Do you want to keep statistics as a manager for a sports team? Do you want to help with yearbook? Could you write stories for our morning news show? Could you compete in Quiz Bowl next year? Then brainstorm what you need to do to get there.
For me, the thing that caught my attention and got me involved as a reader in middle school was Battle of the Books. I enjoyed reading books before but being involved in this competition was different. The book list was full of interesting young adult literature that I’d never been exposed to before. For the first time, I got to talk about books I was reading with other kids my age. It sparked something new in me that has influenced who I am today. I still enjoy reading a good book and talking about it with my friends. I don’t compete any more but I do go to a Book Club at the library.
Who you are as a reader and writer this year can shape who you become as a grown up. I want you to grow up to be curious, engaged, and mindful adults. I want you to have the skills and tools you need to participate fully and contribute positively to your world. Don’t underestimate how important your involvement as a reader is this year. You’ll be surprised to see how you’ve changed at the end of the year!
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Occasional Paper
My husband and I live in a house that was built in the 1940’s. While we love its charm, we are often burdened by projects that do not plague owners of newer homes. The cracks in our plaster walls, the maze of wires that would overwhelm any electrician, the lack of any insulation in our hole-in-the-ground basement – the list could go on. We identify with the young couple in the Lowe’s commercial who are always calling their parents and running to the Lowe’s employees for advice.
Last spring, we tackled replacing the windows. Our windows were original to the house. If you came near them in winter, you’d shudder from the cold draft coming in. It was a top priority simply for the sake of energy efficiency. We began this venture by doing research and taking notes. We used websites, visited home stores, asked friends about their windows, and interviewed many window salesmen. You can read more about one memorable salesman encounter here.
We decided that two major questions would guide our decision: Which type of windows is best? How are windows best installed? Then, we made a master list of the qualities we were looking for in the brand of windows and what was necessary in the installation process. Next, we reviewed the options within our budget of window brands and installation types. We also reviewed again the Energy Star requirements on windows to qualify for the tax refund. Finally, after lots of research and discussion, we chose ThermaStar windows made by Pella for Lowe’s to be installed by Lowe’s Installation Services.
What does this experience mean for my literacy instruction? I found our process to be very similar to the I-Search paper described by Daniel’s in Content Area Writing. We chose a topic, devised questions worth answering, planned our research, used research from a variety of sources, and found useful information. By evaluating my research process, I can see that my students would be highly motivated to research a topic that is important and relevant to them. I could use I-Search papers in Language Arts to address several strands of the curriculum (6th Language Arts 2.01, 4.03, 5.01).
Last spring, we tackled replacing the windows. Our windows were original to the house. If you came near them in winter, you’d shudder from the cold draft coming in. It was a top priority simply for the sake of energy efficiency. We began this venture by doing research and taking notes. We used websites, visited home stores, asked friends about their windows, and interviewed many window salesmen. You can read more about one memorable salesman encounter here.We decided that two major questions would guide our decision: Which type of windows is best? How are windows best installed? Then, we made a master list of the qualities we were looking for in the brand of windows and what was necessary in the installation process. Next, we reviewed the options within our budget of window brands and installation types. We also reviewed again the Energy Star requirements on windows to qualify for the tax refund. Finally, after lots of research and discussion, we chose ThermaStar windows made by Pella for Lowe’s to be installed by Lowe’s Installation Services.
What does this experience mean for my literacy instruction? I found our process to be very similar to the I-Search paper described by Daniel’s in Content Area Writing. We chose a topic, devised questions worth answering, planned our research, used research from a variety of sources, and found useful information. By evaluating my research process, I can see that my students would be highly motivated to research a topic that is important and relevant to them. I could use I-Search papers in Language Arts to address several strands of the curriculum (6th Language Arts 2.01, 4.03, 5.01).
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Book Club, Age 26
My friend, Joy, and I started a book club almost 2 years ago. We meet quarterly with a group of women at Kathleen Clay Edwards library. We are not very disciplined about it and won't be featured on Oprah with her book club any time soon, but we enjoy our little meetings. We've read a few memoirs (Eat, Pray, Love and The Glass Castle), some fiction (Prayers for Sale), and even some classics (The Secret Garden and Little Women). Next up will be The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebekka Skloot. Here's an interview with the author about her book on NPR's Fresh Air broadcast from last February.
This literacy experience is a current, ongoing one so I question if I can measure how much influence it has had on me. Nevertheless, I do see differences in myself as a reader. Now, when I read a book on my own, I find myself evaluating it as a book club possiblity. Will this book spark discussion? What big questions are being explored? Is there anything controversial? Is there popular interest? Is it relevant to the lives of the women in the group? Does it stretch me or take me out of my comfort zone? I'm not only considering myself as a reader, I'm considering my own community of readers as well.
My own enjoyment with the social experience of a book club has helped me understand how social experiences with reading are vital for my students. Using Literature Circles is one of the ways I do this. My students enjoy meeting together in a group of their peers to talk about something they are interetsed in. I find that they are engaged and motivated to read, just like I am with my book club. It is important for them to not only see themselves as readers but to see themselves as a part of a community of readers.
This literacy experience is a current, ongoing one so I question if I can measure how much influence it has had on me. Nevertheless, I do see differences in myself as a reader. Now, when I read a book on my own, I find myself evaluating it as a book club possiblity. Will this book spark discussion? What big questions are being explored? Is there anything controversial? Is there popular interest? Is it relevant to the lives of the women in the group? Does it stretch me or take me out of my comfort zone? I'm not only considering myself as a reader, I'm considering my own community of readers as well.
My own enjoyment with the social experience of a book club has helped me understand how social experiences with reading are vital for my students. Using Literature Circles is one of the ways I do this. My students enjoy meeting together in a group of their peers to talk about something they are interetsed in. I find that they are engaged and motivated to read, just like I am with my book club. It is important for them to not only see themselves as readers but to see themselves as a part of a community of readers.
Gardening, Age 25
Lettuce in Containers from Last SpringLike Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden, all I've wanted for a long time is a "bit of Earth" where I could plant a few living things. During college, I was waiting for the time when I was living off campus and had a place to grow plants, especially vegetables. At 25, I'd been teaching for a few years and was living in an apartment with a west facing balcony on the second floor. I had no "bit of Earth." I had a concrete balcony. So I researched what I could do and came across the book, Bountiful Container by Rose Marie Nichols McGee and Maggie Stuckey about growing edibles in containers. Finally, I had a way of growing food where I lived.
Since I was very interested in growing vegetables at my apartment, I devoured this book. Even now that I've moved into a house with a yard, this book has remained my primary reference for growing and caring for edibles. The authors are very knowledgeable and have written an informative, easy-to-read book. The non-fiction I tend to be attracted to is that which is very pragmatic, like gardening and cooking books. I have a few reference books that I can turn to when I have a specific question but I don't usually sit down with them when I just want to relax and read.
This literacy experience informs my teaching in two ways. First of all, it illustrates the truth that interest is highly motivating. It's the same for my students. When they are truly interested in a topic, they will go to considerable lengths, spending long amounts of time learning about it. Secondly, it illustrates how we read text varies according to the purpose for reading. How I read this kind of nonfiction is different than how I read a novel. I don't read these books from beginning to end. I use the index, table of contents, and subheadings to locate information. It's important to explicitly teach these differences to students so that they know how to be successful with different types of text.
French Class, Age 13
I remember my middle school French classes pretty clearly, particularly my teacher. She loved language - cognates, word origins, connections between languages, idioms, grammar, etc. She was the first person that I can remember who was passionate about words. My middle experience in those language classes was so positive that I continued studying French in both high school and college. My AP French Literature teacher was also memorable. In addition to analyzing literature, we would also analyze music lyrics in French. Here's a poem I remember studying called "L'albatros" by Charles Baudelaire. I believe her class was one of the richest and most challenging literary experiences I've ever been a part of.
It's difficult to pinpoint how those experiences with the French language influence me today as a reader and writer. There isn't much occasion to speak French in Greensboro, NC. Learning Spanish would have been more useful in my everyday life. What it did instill in me was an appreciation for words and literature, more so than any English class I ever took.
If I could be a fraction of the teacher that these two French teachers were, I'd be satisfied. I hope to make my students curious about language, to inspire them to make connections, and to learn the stories behind words. It isn't easy to keep this goal in view when I'm in the trenches in my classroom. I can only imagine that my former French teacher faced the similar difficulties and yet rose above them. Truly being the teacher I want to be is not made easy by those in power. Reminders like these of what has shaped me and who I want to be as a teacher are refreshing.
It's difficult to pinpoint how those experiences with the French language influence me today as a reader and writer. There isn't much occasion to speak French in Greensboro, NC. Learning Spanish would have been more useful in my everyday life. What it did instill in me was an appreciation for words and literature, more so than any English class I ever took.
If I could be a fraction of the teacher that these two French teachers were, I'd be satisfied. I hope to make my students curious about language, to inspire them to make connections, and to learn the stories behind words. It isn't easy to keep this goal in view when I'm in the trenches in my classroom. I can only imagine that my former French teacher faced the similar difficulties and yet rose above them. Truly being the teacher I want to be is not made easy by those in power. Reminders like these of what has shaped me and who I want to be as a teacher are refreshing.
Battle of the Books, Age 11
In 6th and 7th grade, I competed in Battle of the Books. Teams of 4-6 students read a list of books and in a Quiz Bowl style of competition, are asked questions about those books by a moderator. Teams progress from local competitions all the way to a state competition. My 6th grade team was pretty incredible, winning second place in Wake County that year. Back then, there were separate book lists for each grade (today there is one list for all grades with fewer books). I read 55 of the 60 books on the list. From then on, I was hooked on young adult literature.
The most memorable book on that list for me was A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'engle. I have read and reread this book more times than I know. The first line, "It was a dark and stormy night," is fixed in my mind. My experience with this book lead me to her other books - more fiction, her journals, her nonfiction, and her essays. Her work is where the bigger ideas of good vs. evil, the importance of creative work, and the process of reflection first became real to me. It is with Madeleine L'engle that I started to become a critical reader, questioning who the author was and how their beliefs influenced their style. She is who I journeyed with as I matured as a reader.
Have I ever taught using her work? This might be a surprising answer, but no, I haven't. I almost don't know how to approach something that's been very personal and share it with my middle schoolers. Sometimes, I feel like I need more life and teaching experience before I'll be ready to do it well. However, her belief that Story is universal, speaking to all people, at all times, ingrained in us does inform my teaching. My students, both those who struggle to read and those who are successful, get this at the most basic level. They are hooked by good stories. They understand conflict. They are disappointed if there isn't resolution. They are captivated by a skilled storyteller. They, like me, get taken in with a good story.
I'm including here a link to 60 Second Recap's Book Recommendation of A Wrinkle in Time. This site is has really cool, enticing one minute book recommendations for everything from classic literature to popular young adult fiction.
The most memorable book on that list for me was A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'engle. I have read and reread this book more times than I know. The first line, "It was a dark and stormy night," is fixed in my mind. My experience with this book lead me to her other books - more fiction, her journals, her nonfiction, and her essays. Her work is where the bigger ideas of good vs. evil, the importance of creative work, and the process of reflection first became real to me. It is with Madeleine L'engle that I started to become a critical reader, questioning who the author was and how their beliefs influenced their style. She is who I journeyed with as I matured as a reader.
Have I ever taught using her work? This might be a surprising answer, but no, I haven't. I almost don't know how to approach something that's been very personal and share it with my middle schoolers. Sometimes, I feel like I need more life and teaching experience before I'll be ready to do it well. However, her belief that Story is universal, speaking to all people, at all times, ingrained in us does inform my teaching. My students, both those who struggle to read and those who are successful, get this at the most basic level. They are hooked by good stories. They understand conflict. They are disappointed if there isn't resolution. They are captivated by a skilled storyteller. They, like me, get taken in with a good story.
I'm including here a link to 60 Second Recap's Book Recommendation of A Wrinkle in Time. This site is has really cool, enticing one minute book recommendations for everything from classic literature to popular young adult fiction.
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