Gretchen Bernabei's Grammar Keepers-A Must Read!

Receiving a text from Amazon this morning, brought a smile to my face as I sipped my last bit of coffee and prepared myself to go into Westwood Elementary to work with students.  I looked down to see the notification that Grammar Keepers, the newest book from one of my favorite writing gurus, had been delivered to my doorstep.  "Yes!" I said to myself.  "What I wouldn't give to be able to open the package right now and give it a gander, " I thought.  Nope I had to wait 9 hours later, fighting horrible traffic on 290, to open my package.  I opened it feeling quite lucky.  Gretchen Bernabei's book is selling out like Tom Brady jerseys after the Super Bowl.  I bought it on Wednesday of last week and Amazon said that there were only 4 left in stock.  I alerted a friend of mine yesterday. We want to do a book and classroom study with it.  She told me this morning that it sold out and there was a waiting list.  She then had to go to Corwin, the publisher, to buy it. I am lucky to have it in my possession.

I haven't read it all the way through.  I did, however, read the introduction and explanation of the book's inspiration and purpose.  Gretchen also allowed those who attended her workshop last Summer to be privy to see some of it electronically. I have used some of it with students with whom I work.  I have also shared it with some teacher friends.  They love it!  I perused the rest of it and thought about what other lessons that I would use.  It is very up front, user  and kid friendly.  I can't wait to use the sentence wringer, the homophones, and other lessons with students and teachers. I will post more, when I try more of it out.  

Trail of Breadcrumbs

Bernabei Writing Tools

One thing is certain, I am a huge fan of Gretchen Bernabei's work.  I think everyone who knows me well will attest to that.  You can trust her work because she gets it.  She has thoroughly researched these great ideas that have a great stick factor of 100%.  She knows Bruner.  She studied Jerome Bruner and actually met him this past year in New York.  She has studied Vygostky.  I could add more great reading and writing research and name after name. This is so important.  Having said all of that, nothing compares to the classroom research that has wheels.  She is not into theory alone.  Gretchen's theory is grounded in all the research above, but also in many, many years of clinical classroom practice.  She has been there and done it all with writing.  She still stays in the classroom and continues to work with students everyday.  That, my dear friends, is something you can take to the bank!  That is why I trust her and believe in her work. No diggety, no doubt!  Besides all the rationale, I have used much of her work in classrooms.  I see the light bulb go off in students' and teachers eyes and minds.  Students writers become more confident and begin to love to read, write and share the works of their hands.  The teachers feel the same way that I do.  I highly recommend this book and I look forward to writing more about it in the my upcoming posts.

What is next?  I need to dig into Revision Decisions by Jeff Anderson.  I cannot wait to see what this great book has in store for my teaching and thinking. For sure, both Revisions Decisions, are complimentary.  Must reads!

Write Guy-Jeff Anderson's Website

Geico Commercial Favorites

I wanted to post my favorite Geico commercials.  I especially like the one about the camel and hump day and the newer follow-up-to-the camel-commercial.  Hey, guess what day it is?  Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike!  Guess what day it is?  It is Monday!  Oh, darn!  That will not work. No one gets excited about Mondays.  Mondays are the worst day of the week. It is back to work day.  It is get back to normal day.  It is sleep deprivation day.  Lastly, it is the day after Sunday and the NFL games.  Nope, no one likes Mondays.

Me?  I like Wednesdays, The camel gets is it right.  Guess what day it is?  Wednesdays are in the middle of the week days.  When Wednesday is here we are almost on the other side of the bell curve and to the weekend. Guess what day it is?
Wednesday are adjacent to Thursdays. I like Thursdays because they are next to Friday. Fridays are relief days because the next day I can rest, relax and catch up on all the things I didn't have the energy to do! Saturday is a chill day. It is a-do-whatever-I-want-to-day without any particular schedule or traffic!

 Hump days, wonderful Wednesdays help me get through the week. I can take a breath and know that I am almost there.  Guess what day it is?  Mike!  Mike! Mike! Mike!  Guess what day it is!

Back To the Classroom I Go!

I have been given this a lot of thought. I have gone back and forth and back and forth for about 2 years now.  Honestly, for the past eleven years it has been a battle to go or stay.  When I left the classroom to become a literacy and Science coach 11 years ago, it was something that I thought about doing, but never expected it would happen so soon.  A friend of mine, moved onto a district position and there was a position open in my school. I thought that it might have been something that I was interested in trying, but I thought I would have more time. I became a literacy/Science coach.  I worked for 4 years with teachers and students.  I put on numerous workshops, worked with teachers and students in classroom, organized and taught some very fun Saturday Science, Writing and Reading camps. I had a great crew to work along side. It was a complete blast.  Then a district position came open where I could work with both of my loves-Literacy and Science in the elementary and middle school realm.  I got to work with numerous campuses, put on district workshops, work with teachers and students in classrooms.  After a little of an adjustment period, I was thriving!  I loved it.  I had a great team to work with and I got to work with the world's best boss ever.  There were district cuts and then I moved onto a similar role where I am now.  I love working with the different campuses, my team, the teachers and students.  After attending Abydos Reading Week and becoming a Reading Week Trainer, along with attending the Abydos Literacy Institute and Grammar Week, I really had this urge to become more involved in the classroom. I also have so much to continue to try out and work on within the classroom on a day by day basis.  My heart has been torn because I absolutely love to work side by side teachers and campuses providing staff developments and any kind of support in the classroom, including planning and curriculum. I also have this gigantic desire to be more involved in the campus level and be more in the trenches. I want to be more, do more. What do I do?  How can I help teachers in staff developments, in the classroom and work with students on a daily basis?  I have decided that the classroom will be the best opportunity for me for the next school year.  I can work with my team, hold staff developments after school and possibly work on Saturdays.  At the same time, I can try out all of these wonderful strategies and get into deeper educational research. I am an avid reader of books, especially professional books. I read them with enthusiasm and sometimes I get to try things out in classrooms, but not the depth that I want to conduct my research. Now I have the opportunity to do so. I hope to be joining a fantabulous campus, team, with great leadership to boot!  I am so very excited about this decision to return and am making preparations for all the things that I want to do and accomplish with the my next class! Things are coming into focus and are clearer to me. I hope to solidify these plans in the next few months.

Books!  Books! Books!  Now I will be able to bring all of my books from home, from the trunk of my car and now into my classroom. I cannot wait!

I will continue this blog and try to post as much as possible about my work, research and reflections. In the years past, in the other blog (www.justwritebaby1.blogspot.com), most of my posts had to do with what I was researching with teachers and students in the classroom.  My reflection came directly from these experiences. That will continue, but on a more consistent basis.  I will post more later!

Flow from Susan Cain's Book Quiet-the Power of the Introvert in a World that Can't Stop Talking

Flow...oh how did I seriously get flow in the chapter entitled Why did Warren Buffet Prosper?  Susan Cain defines flow as: is an optimal state in which you feel totally engaged in an activity--whether long distance swimming or songwriting, sumo wresting...in the state of flow you are neither bored nor anxious and you do not question your own adequacy. Hours pass without you knowing. It is activity for its own sake.  You could be absorbed for days.  This happens to me.  I don't ever want to get out of the flow because it feels so good to be locked in.  This happens when I am blogging or writing poetry. I went to see Alma Flor Ada, the Spanish poet extraordinaire. She gave a workshop on Spanish poetry and then we wrote some of our own poem in Spanish.  She started us off and then I was hooked. I was literally engulfed in what I was doing.  For the next 5 hours, I didn't pay much attention to anything else but crafting the poem about my daughter.  There was lunch, but I don't remember much about it. I kept thinking I had to get back or lose the words and idea.  I didn't want to break the flow.  Then I had to attend a workshop in the afternoon.  I attended and sat in the chair while a nice woman talked about teaching poetry and ideas to help.  She was more like the teacher in the Charlie Brown classroom. I didn't hear her, because I was in the flow.  I kept on writing and thinking and writing.  When I arrived home, I got on my desktop computer and went to my blog Just Write Baby! and then kept going amid the tears.  I wrote and recrafted and wrote and recrafted until I got it just write.  Then I posted and shared with my daughter what I had wrote about her.  Of course I sent it out and my native Spanish speaking friends helped me with a few things and I edited it over and over and then revised a bit more.  Was I ever proud of it!  It just came to me and flowed.  Did I write it for a reward?  Hardly, I wrote it because it needed to be done.  It had to come out.  When the spirit moves, you have to move with it or never have that idea be realized.  So that brings me back to my introvertedness.  It is easy to post online.  You don't know who is reading, but there are people who do read.  I have no problem posting my work.  It is a joy, especially when I get in the flow.  The problem I have is with people I don't trust or feel truly know me. I cannot, without reservation, express what I think and feel around them.  I trust the small group and the people that I have spent time getting to know.  The people where I feel safe.  When I am around those that I do not have a strong rapport in a bigger setting, forget about the flow.  I get uncomfortable and need to find a place to feel safe and me.  In those instances, during meeting and what not, I tend to search out a 1 on 1 situation or small group, to survive and maybe thrive.  I might just cocoon into my notebook.  As of late my doodles look like art and if I were a tatoo artist, I would be in high demand and filthy rich.  You should see them.  Being an introvert is a gift!  Can't wait to get into more flow and now I am searching out the opportunity!

The Quiet...Observations

I am almost finished with my book called Quiet by Susan Cain.  I lament the fact that I am almost done because I don't want my journey to end.  It is as if, by reading this book, I have ventured into new territory.  Reading this book and pondering the many possibilities has made reexamine my life and my gift of being an introvert. Yes, I know...to some it may be considered a curse.  To me, now that I know what I am and why I am the way that I am, it is freeing.  I am on page 200 now and I love the way Susan Cain has compared and contrasted the different cultures that extol the introvert and those that unfortunately diminish the gift of the introvert or soft power. "In the long run," said Ni (person being interviewed for the book), "if the idea is good people shift. If the cause is just and you put your heart into it, it's almost a universal law: you will attract people that want to share your universal cause. Soft power is quiet persistence. The people I am thinking of are very persistent in their day-to-day and person-to-person interactions. Eventually they build up a team." Soft power, said Ni,was wielded by people we've admired throughout history: Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Buddha. Cain sighted Gandhi as an introvert. Gandhi's passive resistance was categorized or repackaged by Gandhi himself as "firmness in the pursuit of truth." I like that so much better.
Gandhi thought things out and picked his battles.  He won over his enemies without lifting a finger and being aggressive.  Calmness and questioning were his tactics. Firmness in the pursuit of truth indeed!
I sometimes feel that I am being taken advantage of if I don't speak up and stand my ground in some instances.  It doesn't feel right to me many times and I don't want to appear to be a complete idiot protesting so much.  My question is this:  How do you get people to notice your ideas and creativity when they are being drowned out by the extroverts that are so much louder and obnoxious? I have so many ideas, but do not always get them out there because I am waiting for a moment to speak and that moment never seems to come my way. I need to read on to find out how I can be heard and my ideas be appreciated for what they are.  I may not know an answer right now, but give me time to think and ponder, think and ponder and then watch out...but if they are never heard because it is so difficult to find away to be listened to in a world that won't stop talking.  Love the book Quiet...The Power of Introverts In a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain.

TCTELA Spectacular

My brain has been exploding this weekend.  First it exploded from a migraine that I suffered at Friday's TCTELA's Conference.  It didn't leave me fully incapacitated until after my session though.  I think it was the excitement of it all and my presentation.  I tend to get pumped about presenting.  I was also very pleased to meet up with my good friend and colleague Alana Morris.  If you have never had the pleasure of meeting this dynamo, you really haven't lived.  I have worked with her in SBISD for 6 and a half years.  In January, she moved onto another district.  We have been keeping in touch, but it seemed like a zillion years since I had a prolonged chat with her.  Needless to say, it was heaven to laugh and catch up with her.  It was funny too because she was presenting at the exact same time I was and was just next door.  I had a techie gadget that she needed, so it felt like old times.
I wanted to post these photos of day two for you.  I will post more about the conference in the upcoming days.  My brain just needs to process all that I learned and experienced!

TCTELA Friends

I am so glad to be here at TCTELA! Had some time to catch up with my good friend and colleague Alana Morris! Here is my poor-excuse-for-a-selfie photo with Alana.

TCTELA

Starting my day with a cup of McDonald's coffee and getting nudged to explore a Pechakucha! Fun!

Peach-Dedicated my dear friend Cathie Robinson

This is my first draft.  I am still trying to figure out some things here, but will return to revise.  I wish I could encapsulate all that you mean to me Cathie.  I hope that I have captured this for now.  You mean so much to me as a person and a professional.  I am truly indebted to you forever. The Good Lord put us together for a reason.  May the Good Lord bless you now and forever.  Thanks friend!

PEACH

Sometimes 

Meeting people
Along the way
On the journey

Never to forget

One person
Difference made

Life impacted
much to gain

Someone

Someone

never let go

here for a while

 a decade

or so

still...

not long enough
for me

So hard

so hard

to let 

go

Doesn't seem real

Can't  take a hold
dream so foggy

cannot

story's cut short
not to be told
make sense
you leaving?

Hard to compute
Just gotta
let you
go

Funny

Let you go once

two years to the day

Now 

Here it comes my way
again

that day

when goodbyes

won't do

tears go through me

run down my cheeks

soul

 seared

to the bone

charred

remains

am I

That person

holds so much
priceless

from the

encouragement

compassion

inspiration

class

a shoulder

to cry

someone to listen

 my coach

 sister
mentor

friend

PEACH

Who would have thought?

thirteen years
come and gone

this peach

would

could

help me grow

better person

I am 

still

it hurts

down deep

'cause I gotta

for the third time

let go

Difficulty
cannot find the words
to express
my gratitude

writing this poem

for this peach

of a person

with such divine

dignity

so special

endearing

to me

my mentor

example
simply

Cath-ie

Want you to know

the world
you mean to me

I will never forget
Let it slip my mind

your kinds words

so many words

full of charity

peace and serenity

some laughter

with some

grit

the truth

always

pushing me

forth
to goodness
betterment
never say never
ask a question
a time or two

just plain said

you believe in me

always have

always will

and this I treasure
above all

You will never know

how much

you mean
can't do it justice

Cathie 

you are a peach

so wonderful

Eternally grateful

I stand humbled
 to say

what a friend

you have been
in my life

will continue

to be
thirteen years
y pico
extraordinary

such a

PEACH

TCTELA Conference January 23-25 in Houston

The Texas Council of the Teachers of English Language Arts is having their conference next weekend in Houston.  I cannot wait to attend.  There will be great workshops to attend.  People like  Jeff Anderson, Donalyn Miller and Alana Morris.  I will be conducting a session as well.There will be workshops with authors like Paul Janeczko and Christopher Paul Curtis. So much to see and learn!  Go to the link below to learn more.

TCTELA Conference Schedule

TCTELA Conference

TCTELA