Depression: Crying Over PostSecret (Again and Again)
August 20, 2006
Why do I persist in reading the PostSecret cards each week, when I KNOW that each week something there will make me cry?
Webpages as Graphs
August 19, 2006
Because I wanted to be cool like Johndan:
To make your own, go to Websites as Graphs.
Snapshots Column Submitted
August 17, 2006
I sent off a short piece for the Snapshots column of English Journal today. I dunno if it will get in, but I tried. Since I mention college and it’s from many years ago, I’m not sure how much of a chance it has. I’m not very up right now though, so hard to say.
Brainstorming about Teaching
August 13, 2006
Need to stop work on the memoir lesson plan that I’ve been restructuring to work on the Snapshots article I set as a goal for this week. The memoir lesson is for an interesting project that ReadWriteThink is part of that coordinates with a PBS documentary. More on that later though.
I still can’t quite zero in on the topic for the Snapshot. I have the start of a piece on student-centered assessment, but I think it’s more of an opinion piece than a Snapshot. Maybe it will work for the Speaking My Mind column actually! I hadn’t thought of that, but there’s another goal. Maybe I can aim for September on that piece.
But back to Snapshot, I’m going to brainstorm some teaching and learning memories to try to get a start. Here goes.
- freon leak in the typing classroom
- showing my parents how a reference book worked when I was in 6th grade
- being told I should be a teacher in 7th grade
- playing school with workbooks at home
- sneaking into the computer lab with students
- fitting work to students’ needs: grammar rules for ed students
- “golden shovel” as an example of honoring students’ language knowledge
- engaged research for student looking at Holocaust
- summary versus analysis metaphors
I wish this weren’t such a difficult process. It turns out that I really should have kept a teaching journal. Or maybe if I search through my personal journals, but my hunch is that there’s nothing but angst and depression in those (and not over teaching but everything else).
I think I can go with the Golden Shovel though. In fact, I could easily spit out a lesson plan on that to go along with the column. I have the assignment, prewriting questions, and peer review sheet in my folders. Wouldn’t be hard to whip it out, and there’s that great reading of the poem on poets.org. Okay, off to writing that article I think. I hope?
Creating another blog identity
August 12, 2006
Finally created a second site for a different blog that I want to write. There’s some thinking I need to do about my messy existence that just doesn’t go in this blog, so I created a second one elsewhere, and have spent most of the evening trying to get the format to do what I want. It’s still not quite perfect, but I’ve finally taken the first step and done something anyway.
August 9 Writing Projects
August 9, 2006
I turned in the draft for Chapter 3 on Monday afternoon. It ended up at 45 double-spaced pages, and near the end, I’m sure that I started repeating things. I know that the last list of criteria used the verb “Include” in about 8 of 12 bullets. I decided it was time to just get rid of it for a while, and turning it in seemed like the best option.
Next I’m supposed to come up with a short piece for the Snapshots column in EJ. Here’s the call for that section:
Snapshots: What do the key moments of teaching and learning
look like? When did you know that you had made a difference?
What did you learn from a mistake or difficult situation?
For this feature, we invite you to capture one particular
moment in words. We are seeking reflective stories, drawn
from all types of classrooms, that reveal insights about teaching
and learning. Stories accepted for the feature will be published
with the author’s photo and may include other photographs as
needed (1,000 to 1,500 words).
I thought it would be a relatively easy thing to write when I put it on the schedule. It’s just a short story about teaching really, but I’ve been wondering now what story I have that is significant or relevant. I’m feeling as though I may not be able to come up with anything that matters. Maybe something will come to me.
In the meantime, I’ve been editing other people’s writing for the site. Last night, I came across a gem that included the instruction to post students’ final projects in the classroom “even the ones that aren’t so good.” o.O I’m trying to focus on the fact that at least she didn’t say “even the ones by the slow kids.”
Magic blog publications?
August 8, 2006
Is it wrong that I keep my blog in a tab and refresh it periodically to see if I wrote something that I don’t remember?
Composting versus Composing
August 6, 2006
Why is it that when I’m in the middle of writing, typing furiously, I spell writing writhing and composing composting?
Baby Bird Grows
August 5, 2006
Here are this week’s baby bird pictures. He’s very uncooperative and
well-camoflauged. Silly darned bird.
A Writer’s Procrastination
August 5, 2006
Feeling like a writer means that your writing process accomplishes the following things when you’re trying to finally finish chapter three:
- rewrote deadlines on the whiteboard
- erased deadlines and rewrote them as a calendar
- cleaned up the desk
- cleaned up the old PC desktop
- burned 2005 server logs out to backup CDs
- downloaded Jan-Jun 2006 logs
- figured out how to copy songs from ipod to work machine w/o wiping out ipod, because i’m really tired of the options on the weekend and need my own music to survive
- foraged around for and ate many snacks
- Wrote Belief #9
That’s how real writers work, right? So I really have to get #10 and #11 written tomorrow. I have to turn them in on Monday. I guess I’m going home to write some more (which I hope doesn’t mean that I have to clean the sink and load the dishwasher just yet).