Thanksgiving with Zombies

I've stopped trying to stay ahead of them. However, periodically I realize I'm going to have to learn something new so I can at least try to keep from falling behind my students; slipping into the abyss of outdated technology savvy.

I'm truly thankful for these moments. Yesterday it came to me … I can no longer ignore zombies.

I teach a couple intervention groups of English Language Learners; thinking I had more knowledge about English and thus could stay on top of the content of my assignment. Really. After all, I've been teaching ELLs for 3 decades. My entire teaching career.

The students in my groups are lower than the average ELLs at my school, in which 90+% of our student population are eligible for "English as a Second Language" (ESL) services. I have some pretty good tools for sheltering instruction so they can access the curriculum when I send them back to their regular classroom.

For example, when I was dismantling my vegetable garden a few weeks ago, I discovered a caterpillar on the broccoli plant leaves. My first thought was I can take this fellow to school so my students can really experience the life cycle first hand! Thus it has been a fun time of getting reluctant speakers of English engaged in lively conversations and writing tasks.

Yesterday we read a book, entitled (something like…) "What do Plants and Animals Need?" Great photographs that show the meaning of the text; not too wordy, but informative information. After the read aloud, we chatted about each page focusing on what animals and plants were on each page and what we could learn about their habitat from the photos. Then brought the discussion back to the title's question. So … what do plants need? Water, sun, and dirt. Then I thought I could enlighten the students with the fact that there are some plants that grow in water.

One of the students, I'll call him Einstein, declared that Water Lilies grow in water. Then he proceeded to spout off lots of other plant facts. "Wow. You know a lot about plants, 'Einstein'! Where did you learn all this?"

"From plants versus zombies."

"What? What did you say?"

Plants vs. Zombies

After Einstein and the others returned to their regular classroom, I sought out the Science Lady (aka STEM coordinator) in the building. She's young. Really on top of all things technological, as well as science, math, and engineering. She must know what Einstein was talking about.

I found her in the teacher's lounge.

"Have you ever heard of 'Plants vs. Zombies'?"

She chuckled and replied, "Hmm. I didn't take you for someone into that." Ha, ha. Me into Zombies. Yes, kind of surprising, isn't it?! I'm just trying to keep up with my students, I explained.

She thought it might be an app or a game.

Sure enough. This morning I searched the App store on my iPhone, and there it was. For free. Not that I installed it, but I'm thinking I will. Maybe later, after I go shopping at Sprouts for a small turkey. Then when the family comes over for Thanksgiving dinner, I can offer turkey and entertainment! Although, chances are that my nephew's 5 year old son, who will be coming for dinner is already acquainted with Plants vs Zombies. Maybe, just maybe his not-quite-two-month old sister hasn't seen it yet, though!!

Fearlessly waiting for inspiration

(Blog post started 9/10/13, reread 10/12/13  Here's this unfinished piece that led to a new adventure... where did the last month go?! )

The invitation crept into my inbox. Then exploded in my imagination.

Mentoring at-risk students.

A one page summary of my qualifications and reasons for interest in this position is requested.

One page?

Maybe a lifetime of vignettes to illustrate my reasons and qualifications. I don't think that will fly.

I suppose the thing to do is to just start writing and hope it fits on one page...

"Relationships with Educators Accelerate Learning"

Why I want so much to be one of those Educators in the REAL program. Let me count the ways.

1. Mentoring a student one summer during Master's degree program (Major: Social, Multicultural, Bilingual, Equity Education)
2. Numerous home visits during my 18 year teaching career in public education
3. Diverse teaching positions including: 

• Bilingual classroom teacher of kindergartners, 1st graders, 2nd graders English (non bilingual) classroom teacher of 4th graders, 75% ELLs Bilingual Title 1 Literacy teacher ESL support for classroom teachers ESL teacher: Newcomers and Writing focus After-school Writing Project teacher 

Well, now the formatting is slaying me, so I need to stop struggling with it and compose in a Word document so I can focus on the content instead of bullets and margins.

What Lurks Beneath

There is a thick blanket of foliage covering an incline-garden near the playground around my school. During recess the students often investigate what is under the mulch. Sometimes there are mushrooms or worms, sometimes just sticks and bark. Last week, the first graders discovered a hole, which seemed to go a long way into the earth beneath.

Small groups of children would gather around this mysterious burrow. When the crowd grew large, I suggested they go back to their games of jump-rope or tag. Soon another little group would come investigate the tunnel. Finally I asked José what he thought was down inside that hole.

He confidently replied: "Smurfs."

I must have not heard correctly. "Did you say 'Smurfs'?"

"Yes," he replied with a what-else-could-it-possibly-be sort of look ... then he scampered off to the tether ball area as I stood with this extraordinary vision of the world as seen through the eyes of a six-year old.

Writing vs Basketball vs Influenza

The first meeting of the Writing Project was earlier this week, on Tuesday. All 12 students who had signed up came to that meeting. I was thrilled and the kids were enthusiastic.

The second meeting, 2 days later on Thursday was a different story. Seven students came. It turns out that 3 of them had also signed up for a Basketball class at that same time after school. Fortunately I became aware of this on Tuesday and so was able to talk to the students and their parents to let them know that they would need to choose which activity; the Writing Project lessons build on each other. By Thursday afternoon, 2 of the 3 decided to continue on with writing.

Basketball wasn't the only competitor, though. One of the writing students who came on Tuesday went to Student Leadership on Thursday. Sigh. Another student, who gets a ride home with the one in Student Leadership also didn't come because she thought she'd miss her ride so she rode the school bus home.

Another writing student had succumbed to the flu and was home in bed by Thursday.

And one other writing student just disappeared after school. I guess she forgot and went home. Really? You FORGOT? In some ways this was the most disheartening competitor situation of all.

I'd hoped to hook them all by the end of the first week... barely half of them made it to the second meeting. So, that's the class half-empty. But there is still the  half-full class.

E stopped me in the hallway earlier on Thursday and told me that he finished "the story" he began on Tuesday!
V began to dig into his long-ago history of when he attended kindergarten in Mexico during class on Thursday!
M and L huddled together over a discussion of where they've spent time during their lifetime in which mostly Spanish was spoken!
D took the reins at her table discussion and became the "scribe" for the other two members of her group... I hadn't pegged her as a leader. Nice surprise!
M2 (different M from the one above) enthusiastically persisted in working on his story map despite the distractions of J sitting next to him...
And J chose writing over basketball. What a surprise from this big energetic boy who can hardly sit still. Maybe his parents talked him into this, but I hope he had at least a little voice in the decision. I'll try my hardest to not let you down J!

Launching WP

The date of the Writing Project launching has arrived!!

A cart stocked with supplies sits ready to roll down the hallway to the school library at 3:30 this afternoon. The students' writing notebooks are standing ready in a plastic bin, name labels tucked inside. Various pens and pencils, sharpeners, sheets of brightly colored paper, a stapler, scissors, glue sticks and tape are all huddled together on top of the cart. 

Really? You don't use scissors and tape when you write?
        [Cut the colored paper in quarters, tape or staple one piece to the writing notebook's inside cover, 
        making a pocket to safely store homework reminders, writing prompts or other little slips of       
        paper containing assorted writerly ideas.]

If I just could have gotten a little more sleep, I'd feel completely ready; but at times like this the excitement pervades even a nightly suspension of consciousness. Not even a cat-nap in sight.
   

Thinking about thinking

It's called "metacognition"... thinking about one's thought processes.
Then add writing.
Thinking about one's writerly thought processes.
Now add bilingual.
Thinking about one's bilingual writerly thought processes.
That's it!!!

I'm not very skilled at translating, unless it's just to communicate the gist of someone's ideas expressed in one language so that a person who doesn't understand that person's ideas gets the main idea mas o menos. I do speak Spanish as a second language fairly fluently; and given enough time and access to a dictionary (or 2) along with a book of verb conjugations, I can write in Spanish so that my ideas are understood more or less. But write an essay, short story, poem, a NOVEL in my second language? No, not me. But that is what I will ask my fourth and fifth grade Writing Project participants to do next month.

I've been doing a lot of metacognitive thinking about bilingual writing processes as I plan the mini lessons for the project. Over the past fifteen years, mas o menos, of teaching writing to bilingual students, I've developed my own system for how to write in Spanish. Mostly I use this in my written communication to the parents of my students, like newsletters or invitations to a class celebration.

1. I make a mental plan in English of the main ideas I want to get across.
2. I start writing the message in Spanish, consulting several reference books: an English/Spanish translation dictionary, a Spanish dictionary which includes definitions and example sentences, and a well-worn copy of 501 Spanish Verbs.
3. Then I write the same message in English, based on the original mental plan but NOT a translation of the Spanish version.
4. Next I compare the English version and the Spanish version looking for and adjusting critical differences in the message's meaning.

.

5. Finally I look for grammar and spelling errors in the Spanish version... and then sometimes, I send it to my niece, Leah - who is a translator by profession, to have her double check it. Or my backup plan for this double check, is an online translation site.

I've found that if I start by writing the message in English and then translate every word, the sentence construction doesn't come out sounding natural in Spanish. In other words I plan in English, then consciously switch mentally to Spanish to write the first draft. Then switch to English thinking/writing for the second draft. At the end, I open both language drawers in my brain for the final revision/edited version of the writing piece.

Maybe someday, I'll evolve into a bilingual writer who can go from first draft to final copy in Spanish (my second language), without opening my native language (English) drawer hardly at all. In fact that seems to be what we expect native Spanish speaking children to do on the first day of school the year they begin English-only instruction - use ONLY their second language drawer. Some succeed fairly well, probably making use of the native language drawer in their brain as needed without even realizing it. Others, like the students who have been invited to join the Writing Project, need some coaching on using both drawers for a while.

My hope for the Writing Project is that at some point, sooner than later, in the next few years of these fourth and fifth grade bilingual students' school careers, they will arrive at a point in which they can open either drawer and just start writing without using the long process I described above (steps 1-5). In the meantime, we are going to do a lot of thinking about one's bilingual writerly thought processes together.

Lovin' my busy writerly life

Lots happening this month.

I've been sucked into the National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo) of November. Truly thrilling to watch a novel develop before my very eyes. Just a vague outline to begin, which I've strayed from more than not. I've paused for the night at 26,660 words!

The other wonderful writing project is my Proyecto de Escritura Creativa/Creative Writing Project. Fifteen student invitations have gone out asking them to bring their parents to an information meeting. Two of those meetings happened this week. Six budding writers have signed up so far. Two more are definitely in but just need to turn in the commitment form. Hopefully at least four more will sign on and turn the form in by the week after our school pauses for Thanksgiving Break. I'm thinking 12 is the magic number.

I've sent the finalized choice of dates to the bilingual author who will let me know which date she can come to my school and conduct a workshop with the students from the Writing Project (aka WP) shortly before Summer Vacation. I was so lucky to stumble across this author's website; can't wait to have her come work with the WP kids!

 Short blog. Sweet life, which includes a good measure of writing. May the same come to you who read this... and to all a good night... zzzzzzzz!