So I spent all day today finally getting my new laptop set up in the office. Here’s the less cranky background. Every three years, NCTE replaces the computers in the buildings. Obviously this rotates among employees. It’s not like we go out and dump all the machines at once and bring in all new. So my very nice, but overtaxed laptop has been replaced with a much nicer, faster one. I’ve had access to it for a month, but with other deadlines and such, I haven’t had a chance to get it setup and move my files onto it until today.

It’s a lot like my home laptop in terms of the feel of the keyboard and the size and screen, so this should be an easy transition—as soon as I get all the special settings and preferences and plug-ins and whatnot installed and running properly. Fortunately, I get to hold on to the old one for a while, so I can look back for whatever I missed.

In the meantime, there is the never-ending Gettysburg lesson plan to work on. I discovered that C-SPAN has some great video clips that explain answers to some of the questions that I have students exploring. The thing is that I have a boatload of resources, and I’m not sure that they are on target for my audience, 3-5 graders. I’m beginning to wonder if this is a 9-12 lesson plan. I’ve asked Sharon and Lisa for guidance, but I keep writing (and writing and writing).

Got another very angry response to this week’s Inbox Ideas section. Today’s shows that special failure to see reality. First the traditional crap about promoting lifestyles. blah blah blah. Then a little sprinkle of the oxymoronic, which I shall paraphrase: Oh, please evil writers, do not judge me. Really I respect the gays as people. I just don’t respect their [evil, sinful] lifestyle. (Then you don’t respect them, do you?) Then we took a turn toward the silly. General stuff about values and whatnot was followed with an admonition that sexuality should never be discussed in the classroom. There is no place for such lurid topics. (Hmm. What do you do when it becomes time to cover Romeo and Juliet?)

I have such a hard time understanding this kind of hatred. I knew to expect negative messages, but it’s much harder when they actually show up. I guess it feels personal. But to hell with it. I’d do it again. I will do it again.

Today pretty much made up my mind about my work computer. I realize that makes no sense. Here’s the thing. I have a new laptop. It’s sitting on the far corner of my desk. It has been for almost a month. I just haven’t had time to set it up. So it sits there.

Well, today, the second day of trying to make some slightly bulky PDFs, I’ve learned my lesson. The PDFs are contents and summary pages for all of NCTE’s Kits. They’re just pages of basic text, but they have a border stationery that is a very large graphic. I tried again and again on the machine at work, but I couldn’t make them save properly. Brought them home, and here, I had no problems. Lovely PDFs in minutes. That work machine is just too full and too slow. I have no space on the C:\ drive, and I think it just couldn’t swap things back and forth. Okay, there’s some room. I think it was 80MB.

I must get that new machine set up.

Got the November calendar edited and live on the site. There are a few changes to make in the next few days, but it’s 99% complete. We have a forthcoming lesson plan on Elie Wiesel’s Night that will replace a 9-12 EDSITEment lesson on the Kristallnacht entry. And there’s the never-ending albatross, my Gettysburg lesson plan, which will probably replace the Exploring Free Speech and Persuasion with Nothing But The Truth lesson on the Gettysburg Address entry.

Today’s high point is the unveiling of my kit in the online store! That’s right! You can now go purchase the resources I picked and the framing text that I wrote in a convenient package (with a beautiful purple cover :)

On the very sad side, we’ve gotten angry mail about yesterday’s Inbox Ideas section. I know. It was about LGBT issues. I expected it. Really I did. But that doesn’t make it any easier. It would be one thing if someone said I was a bad writer. It’s different to be told that I’m writing about bad things and that the reader is completely offended by my words. How do you respond to a message that tells you not to write about such things again or the person will cancel his/her membership? Sigh… :(

Tags: English language arts |
K12 instruction |
lesson plans |
NCTE Inbox |
ReadWriteThink

So today I was at work for most of the day. We’re counting this as an accomplishment. I didn’t manage to do much more than that though. I really need to get to the grocery store and do some other errands; but I’m so wiped out from the drugs that it’s all I can do not to fall asleep at work. I did get my car filled up, but only because it was way over on the E and the “You must stop for gas chicken” was up in the front cupholder squawking about the need for gas.

I’ve finally managed to figure out the Gettysburg Address lesson. I dropped all the PowerPoint stuff and decided to do it as another one in the Myth and Truth lessons (the others are on Independence Day and Thanksgiving).
There are a number of misconceptions about the Gettysburg Address. The most famous is likely that Lincoln wrote the speech on the back of an envelope during his train ride to Pennsylvania. Since I can copy the backbone of the lesson from those original two, this should be easy to whip together now that I’ve finally figured out what I’m doing. At least I hope so.

I wish that I had managed to go through my notes and drafts for my book. I haven’t picked it up in weeks; but there’s a discussion on WPA about devising writing assignments. I’m sure that I have material that’s pertinent, but I haven’t been able to dig it out. Beyond that, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to share info from a working draft with someone else who’s writing a book and needs the information for a similar reason. My colleagiality voice tells me to share with everyone. My business-savvy voice says don’t be a fool and give your info to someone else. Keep it for yourself. I guess since I haven’t had time and the thread seems to be dying, maybe I can just not worry about it. The thread does emphasize the need for the book I’m writing. There’s nothing out there that pulls things together. So at least I’m writing on a good idea.

Time to dose up on another pile of pills and get to bed.

Hmm. Accomplishments for Saturday, the first day of October? Well, I got out of bed and watched the Virginia Tech football game. Eventually, the drugs made me dizzy/sleepy so there were two different naps.

Then I fiddled about with the Gettysburg lesson plan. I think I’ve nearly convinced myself that the original idea I had was a bad one. The thing is I have a lot of raw material, so I really need to do something with this text. It would be a shame to scrap it when I’ve gathered lots of good stuff. Mostly they are great Web sites that include drafts and other historical information. There’s also an iMovie site that has a student-produced movie of Civil War photos with the class reading the Gettysburg Address as the narration. Perhaps the oddest resource is from ourdocuments.gov. For some unknown reason, they have included a Flash version of the a draft of the Address. The resource allows you to move the piece of paper around so that you can see different parts of it on screen. It’s beyond me why they’ve done this. It’s more frustrating than it is useful. If you really want to see the original drafts and use them in class, I strongly urge you to use the Library of Congress pages, which show the entire page of the draft on screen. Much easier to use.

Beyond that, my only other accomplishment was adding a little calendar to my blog template. There’s some woman trying to sell something to add calendars. I wasn’t impressed with her work. First her page loads strangely with Google Ads flashing about. Second that blog page of hers is more then a year old. That’s dead for us Blogshares players, so I’m skeptical of the tool. Instead, I found a free javascript that does the job. I tweaked it slightly because I wanted the calendar on ever page, but I’m no longer sure that that was a good idea. Maybe it should only show up on archives. I’m figuring that I’ll look at it this way for a while, and then change it if I decide it functions too strangely. The problem on the homepage is that it builds a calendar for the entries on the page, starting from the bottom up. So today, for instance, I’m posting an October entry, but the little calendar in the right navigation bar will be for September—and not all of September, just from the entries on this page. The script works perfectly for archive pages, which is what it was designed to do. I just wanted one on the homepage, but I’m realizing the folly of that desire.

A sick day is such a lovely thing. I think all the bed rest is helping. As long as I take the medicine, things hurt much less. The problem is that about 2 or 3 hours after taking the medicine, I feel dizzy and can’t keep my eyes open. So there have been several naps.

Between naps, I’ve been working on a lesson plan about the Gettysburg Address. I can’t seem to find my focus. I keep running into a wall where I’m not sure why I (or anyone) should be asking kids to work through this text. I know… it’s a great historical document; it’s one of those texts people expect you to know if you’re an American. But I can’t seem to figure out how to make it more than an exercise. I have great Web pages to use, and I know teachers teach it. It’s a good topic, but it feels fake to me. I need to find an approach that feels right.

I have other lesson plans that I could work on. I need to edit one that uses Elie Wiesel’s Night, another the works with The Grapes of Wrath, and an elementary one that I can’t remember the topic of. I also have rough starts on some lessons that I’m writing—one on reading and writing in the digital world, a newspaper lesson, and a word definition lesson. I hate to give up on the Gettysburg Address though, so I’m sticking with it. I can fit it into the November calendar if I can get it written (Lincoln delivered the address on November 19). Must get back to digging around for an approach that feels comfortable.

The proofreading corrections came in for my framing text, so my first task for the day was fixing the piece and turning it over so that the final Kits can be created and put in the warehouse. Something caused a minor delay so it won’t make it to the online store by the end of the month, but it should be there next week.

We touched base on several lesson plans and on some PDFs I need to make for the NCTE store. Lisa, Sharon, and I went on a field trip to Michael’s to look for a plastic box for another product we’re working on. It was also an excuse to go through the Wendy’s drive-thru for lunch. I managed to eat chicken strips with honey mustard with relatively little acid problems :)

I spent quality time decorating my cute little Circa notebook with stickers. When I had my update with Sharon, she wanted to know where I got my notebook cuz she liked it too. Maybe I’ll start a new fad at NCTE. What I like the most about this silly notebook is that it’s easy to be a perfectionist. I never have to start over. My biggest decision is whether to write on the back of the sheet if it’s a different topic.

My back is still ouchy, and my brain is still mushy. I’m taking a sick day tomorrow so I can rest for three full days before I have to go back to work. I hope it helps. I have ReadWriteThink calendar and lesson plans to do while I’m sitting here at home, so it’s not like I plan to sleep the WHOLE day. Then again, maybe I will. It’s not my fault that the drugs make me sleepy. If I have to sleep all day, I’ll just have to gather my courage and surrender to the bed.

So at some point overnight, I realized that going to work today was senseless. The pills had my brain mushy, and I was still in lots of pain. I remember calling Sharon around 9 AM or so, and telling her that I was taking a sick day. God only knows what else I told her. We had talked just a day or two ago about the gobs of sick time I’ve accumulated, so it didn’t bother me to take some. Hell, I’m supposed to be able to take it, and it hurts to walk across the room. The idea of getting up and somehow showering, dressing, and getting into and out of the car is impossible.

I think I got back out of bed around 10 or 10:30, and I redosed on the medicines. I fiddled on the computer, but soon my brain was mush and I was yawning and unable to keep my eyes open. I went back to bed. The drugs are dehydrating me too, so I remember getting up for water at some point. Around 2 PM, I got the call from the doctor’s office. The X-rays show disc narrowing at L4 and L5. No word on what the means I’m supposed to do.

About 30 minutes after that, I got the call from the physical therapy office to set up that appointment. They can’t get me in until October 20, which is just as well because I’d rather be covered in bees than go do this. They also had me confirm all my personal info in the system. Turned out that neither of the people they had as emergency contacts were useful, seeing as they were both dead. :( I rolled over and went back to sleep again.

I think I checked e-mail again around 4. Went back to bed by 5 or so, and didn’t get up until 10:00 PM. It was a day of much sleeping and unhappy discomfort. I’ve fiddled around online a bit, and mostly feel very sleepy. The only thing I’ve actually accomplished was making a new cover for my cute little notebook out of some purple cardstock that I had. I am -so- loving this notebook. One of the most interesting things this evening was my realization that I could be a perfectionist with this thing and not be stuck in the ‘what if’ stage. With something like a new notebook, I spend too much time trying to plan out how to use it, asking myself questions about what to put in which sections, how to organize things so that I can find them, and so on. I was sitting here looking at the notebook tonight and suddenly realized that the beauty of this thing is that I can try out different ways of organizing because I’m not ever going to be stuck. I can easily rearrange them. I could kiss John’s feet. I’m so glad that his explanation of this thing finally clicked, because I can see it changing my perfectionist ways in positive ways. Of course, making that cover took all of about 5 minutes top (had to get it trimmed to the right size, which took some trial and error). Not really much of an accomplishment to brag about.

I tried to do some work on a lesson plan, focusing on reading and writing definitions. I haven’t gotten very far. Damned mushy brain. And you know the mushy brain thing wouldn’t be so bad if the drugs were actually knocking out all of the pain. But they aren’t. It hurts just to move. I have taken extra medicine that I’m not supposed to (because of the acid reflux). I know it’s stupid, but it hurts and I want it to stop. I guess I may as well go back to bed. At least when I’m sleeping I only have to deal with pain when I try to change positions. It’s not like the horror of walking around. I need a helper monkey—and a handicapped parking tag for my car.

My beautiful, cute, new Circa journal arrived today, while I was at the doctor’s office over my horrible back problems (more on that later). The good news is that my notebook is perfect and lovely. I even realized that I could tear some pages out of the flower journal, trim the pages, punch them, and add them to the new notebook.
I remembered that I had a rolodex punch from my days at Daedalus. I dug it out, and it works perfectly for adding pages. Okay, so I have to punch it 7 times, but I already own it. I wanted to keep the spending very low until I was certain that this is what I want to do. I may eventually get a punch from Levenger’s, but this seems quite perfect for now. Now I just need to transfer information over from the old notebook so that I don’t have to carry them both around.

On to the doctor. I did something to my back. AGAIN. I don’t remember doing anything. In fact, I’ve been overly careful, and while my sister was here, I didn’t lift anything. She carried all the stuff that needed carrying. Whatever it is, it came on very fast this time. I feel like someone is poking a fork into my lower back and twirling it so the muscles knot around it and tighten (like you’d twirl spaghetti on that fork).

I couldn’t even get to the office till 1, and within 30 minutes, I knew I was in deep trouble. I called the doctor, and through some miracle, they had an opening at 1:40. So I went off to the doctor, who gave me prescriptions for Flexeril and Darvocet. She also said I had to go get x-rays and do physical therapy. :( The x-ray tech was very nice, and while it was very, very uncomfortable, it wasn’t as bad as the last time. No word on the x-rays till the doctor sees them though.

After all that, I went back to the office. Partly because I knew that if I went home, I would just go back to bed, but also because I knew that my notebook was out for delivery, and I wanted it. I didn’t last till 6:30 though. I left around 5. It just hurts too much, and I couldn’t think. Took a nap when I got home, then I got up to play with my cute notebook.

I sure hope that the drugs start working soon. It’s hard to walk around in the house. How on earth can I walk around the office? It’s really painful and hard :(

Got all the reviews for the Teaching Media-Savvy Students kit on Friday, so I finished the revisions today. It’s off for the finally proofreading by the editors tomorrow. Should be in the online store by the end of the month. And no, I don’t get royalties, but I’m eager to see it finished and for sale.

Also wrote my Ideas section for Inbox, but I’m not telling you what it’s about so that you have to come back tomorrow to find out.

I’m still suffering from the acid reflux. I’m trying to eat really, really bland things until it straightens out again. I’m remembering that I ate some honey mustard last week. Maybe that was part of the problem. Whatever it was, it’s accompanied now by a side order of major back pain. I didn’t do anything improper, so I’m dumbfounded by the back issue. All I can think is that it’s the changes in my bed. My sister and I raised it so the top is elevated 8 inches, as all the acid reflux information advises. Maybe it’s causing me to sleep differently and I’ve caused the muscles to tighten up or something? I’m sitting with an ice pack tonight and that seems to help some.

Thanks to John’s comments yesterday, I realized that I needed those Circa notebooks too.

I have spent days looking for a notebook that I liked. I’m surprised that I didn’t get thrown out of Pages for all the testing I was doing—trying to decide if it would lie on the desk properly, would stand up to wear and tear, had pages that turned easily, etc. I finally decided that I was just going to have to settle for something that I was only lukewarm about and make do. It’s a cute flowered spiral journal, but not really perfect. Not what I wanted.

I never understood those Circa notebooks, so they didn’t seem like an option. A former employee at NCTE swore by them and had all the employees she managed using them; but they just seemed pricey with no real benefit. I thought they were silly. After all I can tear paper out of my notebook now, why do I need a fancy system. John’s explanation suddenly made it make sense. Especially given the standard stuff that I have to just copy over and the running lists that I need to keep. As I understand the Circa system, these notebooks will simplify things for me.

I got the shipping confirmation this evening so it’s on its way—one junior notebook and a pack of dividers. I decided to buy the cheapest basics to start with just to make sure I like it.

Even though I like the idea of being able to arrange the pages and whatnot, there’s this manuscript lover’s voice in my head that is hesitant. Naturally, nothing I put in a notebook will matter in the long run. No one is going to study my papers. Still, I have this feeling that it’s just wrong to rearrange pages in a journal. It kills me to remove a page from a notebook&#151especially the bound kind where you have to cut out a page for some reason. It’s like some crime against humanity to take a page out of its original place. Very paper-based and linear of me really. I’m trying to convince myself to get over it. After all, my notebook left the FEDEX ramp in Fort Lauderdale at 21:52:00.