Tut -tut, it looks like Change

New Blog

Not Perfect, Just Inspiring

This is the project that has consumed most all of this semester. Today they had their "last chance edit". I told them today that we were publishing this. That I would send it to all the parents, teachers, administrators, community members, and people that I know. I told them that many people would see this site and would see their writing. I told them that people would judge them based on this. People would judge them, and their school, and Native American teenagers as a whole based on this writing. And boy oh boy did they edit their little hearts out!

And so I give to you... Rosebud's Most Inspiring People, 2009!


I hope you will read and judge and find both the subjects of articles and their authors to be as inspiring as I do!

This is how the year ends....

Not with a bang, but with a movie and a worksheet.

We're watching Romeo and Juliet. Not really studying it, just watching it. I wanted to study it, to read it, I really did. It would have been fun. But we lost 10 or so days to cold and blizzards. I underestimated the complexity of our Feature Article assignment and then decided to toss laptops, Gmail, and Google Docs into the mix- which was an awesome experiment, but took a lot of time. So here we are with 8 days left of school, watching Romeo and Juliet and filling out a worksheet.

The bang came last week, when we took the final reading assessment and hit over 2 years of reading growth. Bang!

And now we're all pretty happy, we're all pretty friendly. We're just watching and filling out worksheets, but the conversations are more real than they have been all year. We're not going to gain a super in-depth understanding of this play... but they are watching closely, asking good questions, making good connections, and listening to my stumbled answers. I think we all deserve this more laid back environment right now, and I think we're all realizing that the questioning and connections do not end after the final reading assessment.

Happy Holidays!

anne_cats1
Originally uploaded by photoschwalbe

This is my crazy cat lady Christmas card photo :)

"arctic air intrusion"

This is the reason school was canceled yesterday. Supposedly it was so cold the buses wouldn't start. Gotta love the plains....

sunrise over frozen lake

sunrise_frozenlake
Originally uploaded by photoschwalbe

yup. it's winter.

Obama and Our Schools

Right On!

I don't have the focus to write a detailed account of my storm experience right now, but Marion and Sarah have already written thorough accounts so I'll just link to theirs for the time being:

Marion in Parmelee (about 15 mi. away)
Sarah in St. Francis (next door)

I'm hoping to have my students write about their experiences tomorrow.

Queen of the Drift

Queen of the Drift
Originally uploaded by cannon.sfis

this is not a snow bank created by plows... it's a 7ish foot drift created by driving winds

Blizzard update--

The blizzard turned out to be more damaging than I knew. Some communities were without power and heat for four days or more.

This article appeared on the front page of Rapid City Journal regarding the conditions in Wanblee, where four Teach for America teachers live and work.

I can't even imagine what the last several days have been like for the people there or for all of my students here.

There's a part of me that does not want to go back to being a Teacher on Wednesday--- but another part of me that will be relieved to see the kids again and feel lucky to be teaching them.

South Dakota Snow Break--- The Return

This is a picture taken by Evan of the front door of his school on the Pine Ridge Reservation after the blizzard that just passed through the Dakotas.

School was canceled here both yesterday and today. Our power (and heat) was out for about 14 hours last night. There is a snow drift that is about 6 feet tall outside my trailer. Sweet.

I should be using this time to get caught up on teaching stuff and start grad school and job applications. But mostly I've been sleeping, reading, cuddling with kittens, and bonding with other teachers.

Sherman Alexie is Awesome

For my Students, Now Poets

Raise your voices, please

Please raise your voices

If you would only

Would only Speak Louder

LOUDER!

Be heard Be heard Be heard Be heard

I’m scared I’m scared I’m scared I’m scared

You say you’re scared

I’m scared

So you whisper

You whisper whispered voices whispered

Your words always whispered so soft…

Someone might hear you

Someone might hear your whispers

And listen to your words and that someone

Might smile at your words

Might read those words those Lakota words

Those proud native words

Grass words and sky words

Animal words and ancestor words

Someone might read those words

And smile to know those words are still breathing

Those words are still living

You are still living.

You could make them smile.

Someone else

Someone else

Might hear your whispers

Whispers whispered voices

and be sad for you

They might cry for you

They might see in your words those gravestones you carry

Those graven images on your binder

On your t-shirts

Those gravestones that you carry

Covered in crosses and rhinestones

Those gravestones dragging, pulling, holding

Your hurt could drown hearts made of granite

You could make them cry with your words.

Someone else

Someone else might hear your whispered words

and get mad

Might hear your oppressed words

Inarticulate words without opportunities

Words that want more but don’t know how

Don’t know how because no one taught them how

And someone might read those wanting words

And it might make them want something more

For you

It might make them mad

It might make them want something more

To do something more

For you

To articulate your words

To give them opportunities

To teach you those words.

They will want to reach you

They will want to teach you those words

They might hear your whispers and get mad

Raise your voices, please

Please raise your voices

If you would only

Would only Speak Louder

LOUDER!

Be heard Be heard Be heard Be heard

Make them smile

Make them hope

Make them cry

Make them mad

Make them want

Teach them

Reach them

With your loud voices Loud voices

Spoken Words

Spoken Loudly

Because it’s hard to hear whispers

Its Native Tongue Facing Extinction, Arapaho Tribe Teaches the Young

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/us/17arapaho.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

and sometimes it's not...

It's been a while.

We're nearing the end of our procedural text unit. Final drafts are due Friday. Why am I so much better the beginnings of units than the ends of them?

I love brainstorming. I love immersing them in real world examples of the genre and letting them figure out what it is and how to do it.

But despite having read everything Jeff Anderson has published... I just can't get into grammar and editing. I know, what kind of English teacher doesn't like grammar, right? I can't help it. It's just boring.

I don't know why-- I don't mind revising and editing my own writing. I enjoy perfecting my sentences, rearranging, fixing commas, etc. (not that I do that kind of meticulous editing on here very often you may have noticed) But somehow I haven't figured out how to teach those things in a way that I like and kids like. I want to give them back their rough drafts with my comments on them and just say "go-- fix stuff! make them better!" But that approach definitely doesn't work. They have no idea how to improve their own writing.

I'm trying an Express Lane Edit tomorrow (courtesy Jeff Anderson), we'll see how it goes.

Next unit will be more heavily front loaded with sentence structure lessons.

This is a highly teacher talk post-- I just can't write about my frustrations outside the classroom right now. And by outside the classroom, I don't mean outside the school...

Sometimes being an English teacher is too much fun...

Unit 1 is on Procedural Texts. Sounds boring right? NOT.

Procedural Video Example #1:




Procedural Video Example #2:

Just another South Dakota Weekend

Pictures stolen from Sarah.

We went to the badlands this weekend. in search of "some kind of--- Smart Bug" after watching Starship Troopers, which was filmed partially in Interior, SD.

We didn't find any giant alien bugs, but it was pretty fun all the same.

Sometimes I have to get away from school and my trailer to remember that this is a cool place and I'm lucky to live here.

Next comes three 5 day weeks in a row- and the execution of my first actual Unit this year.
I'm so not ready, but here we go....

The Cricket in My Classroom

There is a cricket in my classroom. It is living behind a very heavy bookshelf that I am unwilling to try moving to get to it. It is a lively cricket and likes to chirp all the time, even when the lights are on, and especially during silent reading time.

Yesterday I was extremely annoyed by the cricket and it's chirping. Today- I'm developing an appreciation for the persistent little guy. It's almost nice to have a little bit of the outside in here. It's almost soothing.

And soothing is something I could use this week-- it's homecoming. I decided to not be student council adviser this year and it was a very good decision. I do not miss all that planning and scrambling one bit. Although, at such a small school many homecoming responsibilities fall on all of the staff, so I still feel pretty harried and pressured to get something together for the freshmen class- decorating a hallway today, decorating a float tomorrow.... keeping 50 teenagers under control with paint, paper, scissors, tape, streamers, and balloons--ha.

Kittens

I have them. I tried posting pictures but apparently my camera card is not working.... I'll figure something out soon. Just know that they are unbearably adorable.
Mattie is longish haired with gray and black stripes. She is super friendly and curious and follows me around and gets into everything.
Turtle is sleek and almost all black with white paws and a white chest. She is very shy, but when I do get her to sit with me she's a champion cuddler, purring and pawing in appropriately adorable ways.
They are about 8 weeks old and come from a ranch in Nebraska. They like to race across my trailer at top speed and pounce on one another. It is far too entertaining :-P

This post sounds like something I wrote about my cats in 7th grade English class.

I <3 Cats

*Don't worry, this is not going to become a crazy cat lady blog. Probably.

Tumblr

I recently started a Tumblr Blog which is a pretty nifty site where you can easily post snipets of stuff from around the web. Recently I've been collecting lots of quotes about writing from some authors I plan on reading with my classes this year. Check it out.