Day Two of The Training of Trainers from Gretchen Bernabei-Kernel Essays and Revision Stations

We are taking our work from today and revising it. We made a quick list about things that are problematic and ways that we can come to our resolution.  I took interruptions in the classroom. The number one culprit in the classroom is the telephone. No, I am not speaking about my cell phone. Some of my students carry electronic devices. I am not speaking about them. I am speaking about the land line or dinosaur telephone that is my nemesis. It always disrupts the flow of my classroom.

We were to follow the structure from the Declaration of Independence.

Here it is:

Text Structure:

1. A belief that you have about a topic   
2. The problem   
3. Your personal proof  
4. Solution that has been tried unsuccessfully
5. Your solution

Here is my kernel from this morning:

1. Teacher need time for instruction.

2. Constant interruptions take away from the flow of instruction.

3. Every time that my students and I were fully engaged in instruction, the telephone would ring in my classroom, and it would inevitably destroy the moment. 

4. I would let the phone ring as it took me a country mile to come and answer.

5. Schools should protect instruction at all costs between the hours of 8 and 3 pm. 

Now I am going to use one of the revision stations to revise my work.  I am going to use snapshot and thoughtshots.

Teachers need time for instruction. Learning takes time, uninterrupted block of time. 

Interruptions take away from the constant flow of instruction. It takes time to get all of the students to be fully engaged in what we are learning. It always happens that when I have my entire class with me, all eyes are upon me, leaning in listening, talking with their groups about what they are learning, or we are in small group with a thousand points of light going off in their minds, when the telephone starts to ring out too loud. I say to myself, "WHY? WHY? WHY?"  Everyone shouts, "Awww! Not again!"  I have to stop what I am doing, walk a thousand steps, and ask patiently about what I can do to help the person on the other line. The learning has stopped and will be very hard to return to that learning zone.  

When the phone rings, I am teaching. Inevitably, I am never, ever sitting next to my phone waiting for it to ring. If I was ever too far from the phone, by the time I would make it over to answer, it would stop ringing. I decided that if I was too far, I would allow it ring. If it would be important, then I thought that they would call back.  I also had students answer the phone, but the person on the other line would ask for me. On a scale of 1 and 10, as far as importance goes, it would be a 1. It could have been taken care of with an email.  I hate interruptions with a passion.

My thought is this: school should protect instruction and interruptions should happen once in a blue moon. Anything that can be placed in an email should be placed in an email and read at the end of the day.   

  

Here is a digital version of revisions stations. Go to this link: Revision Stations

Day One-Training of Trainers with Gretchen Bernabei

Today I attended the Gretchen Bernabei workshop. I really enjoyed the day. The attendees went through many prewriting strategies like making quick lists, quickwrites,  exploring the memory kernel essay, sharing our writing in groups of three, delving into two indelible moments using a telephone note pad, and writing paper that is used in the primary aged classrooms.  We also revisited the BADABING, the elastic kernel, and coloring up essays.  We also shared sentences from our writing and made comments using Sparkling Sentences. I really liked that because we used the raw materials from the writers and then we had to use analysis to explain what we liked about it. We were looking for craft and naming it. Thus we began to own it.

I really liked the revisiting of the elastic kernel. We made a trifold where we took what we wrote about in our first quick write and then tried to think of that topic in light of an expository essay. We then did the same thing with regards how that topic might appear in the argumentation or persuasive form.  I immediately thought of multigenre reading and writing. Meaning dictates form. The writer must decide what form to use for the reader. It is a narrative form? Is it a poem? Is it an expository piece?  It all depends. That can be the case for the reader as well. What does the reader expect to see from the piece if it is a poem, narrative, expository, or persuasive piece?  Meaning dictates form. What do I wish to convey and what structure do I choose?  That is what I was thinking about today when the elastic kernel was discussed. The use of the Analysis Pyramid by Alana Morris would go very well with the elastic kernel.

 

We also observed ways to add detail to the kernel essay. There were different stations where we looked at the use of flipbooks, chunking the kernels on single pieces of paper, and adding and identifying the use of the writer's tools in student writing using icons. I would really like to delve more into the flip books. I had used them in the past for narrative writing with students and teachers. I would, however, like to use them with expository kernels as well. In addition to that, using them with icons is something I want to try out more.

When we wrote using an artifact or stimulus with the indelible moment, it brought me back to a workshop that I had presented a couple of summers ago. We had explored the indelible moment using the telephone note pads. They were the exact kind that I used. We wrote about an moment associated with a phone call and shared out. We then wrote on lined paper that a first or second grader might use to write. We then wrote about a school memory. I enjoyed doing that. She shared student work on coffee filters and paper plates. My students did that this year. We used paper plates and wrapping paper. These were all great stimuli from which to write.

All in all, this was a good day. We will see what tomorrow brings.

Saying Goodbye to Sandy

My Sweet Sandy

I had a very difficult week. My cat of 6 years and few days passed away. She was a wonderful cat. She had quite the personality. She was my lap cat. Every day, when I would sit on my couch, she would jump and lay down on my lap. She would then purr up a storm. If I stopped petting her, she would look up at me and gently tap me no my chin to continue. It was quite funny. I would say, "What do you want?" Immediately, she would tap me on my chin and meow a little meow. She had me trained.

Every time that I would go into the kitchen, she would jump up on the red circular table and meow at me. She wanted me to feed her. The funny thing was that most of the time her bowl as completely full. She wanted to wet foot or just a scratch under the chin.

Sandy was playful. She loved to play with my cat Sammy. Every morning, she would come into my room and meow for me to pet her. Sammy would accompany her. They would then wrestle for a bit.

Sandy was also very persistent. If Sammy was on the couch or laying peacefully on the bed, she would jump on the bed and lay next to him. Sammy would groom her for a few seconds. Then, BAM! The wrestling would ensue. After about 10 seconds, Sammy would leave and Sandy would take his spot.  She was the boss!

About two years ago, Sandy came down with an autoimmune disease. It is called feline acne. She wanted to scratch herself in the face, near her ears, under her chin, and near her eyes. She also exhibited some behaviors where she would bite and wound herself on her paws and on her stomach. Thee itching was intense. We went to the vet a zillion times. They gave her injections of steroids that would arrest the symptoms for a while. When she would scratch herself, her face became black from bleeding so much. She had beautiful white face before she became ill. Her chin, neck, ears, around her nose and close to her eyes, were constantly scratched and bleeding. The vet gave me some lotion to put on her chin. He also gave us some medication that had to be administered orally. We couldn't put it in her food. That would not be a problem for a cat like Sammy. Sammy is a totally easy going cat. Sandy would run the moment she sensed we (my daughter and I) wanted to give her some medicine. My nineteen year old daughter and I could not make her sit still enough to give her the medicine. It was impossible. And that is what happened. Her condition grew worse. We kept taking her back to the vet to get injections. After a while, the vet decided that the steroid was not an option because of the side effects.  We were at a loss. We couldn't help her, yet she continued to get worse. She would scratch so much that her face was blackened with dried up blood. She would sit on my lap, and then all of the sudden she would dark off leaving me with some deep scratches on my legs. Her behavior became erratic. Sandy would bully the other cats and hide for days.  She would run from me for no reason. She scratched even more.

Sandy with Sammy (Notice her battered face from the feline acne.)

She passed on Wednesday. It was hard to see this. I wish there was more that we could have done. I took her to the vet constantly. We tried administering the medicine to no avail.The problem was her illness and not allowing us to help administer the medicine and clean up her cuts. It was totally frustrating because we were completely powerless. We just couldn't help her suffering. If only she was more like Sammy.
When I sit down on the couch, I look around for her. It is something that I am going to have to get used to...her not being around. She was a good cat with a terrible illness. I love you, Sandy! I'm gonna miss you!
I added a video about my crazy Sandy before she became sick. She always had a way to make me laugh.

My daughter wrote a blog post about losing Sandy and included some wonderful photos. Read if you like. The link in provided below.

Sandy in her younger years

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/losingapet

Essays and Grammar: Training of Trainers Summer Workshops by Gretchen Bernabei

Gretchen Bernabei is putting on some summer workshops called Essays and Grammar: Training of Trainers.  I will be attending one of them. I am so very excited to learn new things and go deeper with the strategies that I have implemented  with my students and colleagues. The workshop is four days in length. The workshop will be intense. I can't wait. The dates and places are below. I have also provided a link to her site for the summer workshops: http://www.eventbrite.com/o/trail-of-breadcrumbs-llc-3424501879  I will be posting more photos and reflections very soon.  The first workshop will take place in New Braunfels tomorrow. I hope to see you in one of these workshops.

Too Hot!

Too Hot!
By M Ucles

It is an oven
over here
In H-town

It is a rotisserie
conventional
convectional
oven
listed on
QVC
HSN
with Wolfgang Puck
Rachel Ray
Emeril-BAM!
Infomercials  on TNT
on the BBC
searing
don't touch
breathe
or move
TOO HOT!

Can't move
Need some kind of
Relief
from this--
Sweat causing
heart pausing
dominating
heat
too much
to take

Student Blogs

Here are two blogs created by students. Click on the links below.

https://writereadfun.blogspot.com/

http://crislife2005.blogspot.com/

The Day The Crayons Quit Read Aloud with Students and Teacher

My students and I created a Camtasia project. We read aloud the book entitled The Day the Crayons Quit.  They captured video with my phone and I produced this video using Camtasia Studios. It was a a blast producing it. They did a great job reading aloud with prosody and expression!

TodaysMeet and Reading Response

I created a screencast using Camtasia to show how my class used TodaysMeet and Edmodo to record our reading responses to the book The Magician's Nephew.

Top 5 Goals!

Please take a gander at the link below. One of my students is a great soccer fan. He loves to watch soccer and play it. He produced his top five goals using Stupeflix and then brought it over to Camtasia to add voice narration. He chose the music and the sequence. He cut out the video pieces and edited them. Wow! It is so great to see him take this project and run with it. It is  definitely a GOLAZO!

http://uclesm.edublogs.org/2016/06/27/top-5-goals/

Summer

This is my last week of summer school. It has been good so far. I am really in the mood for some summer though. I am ready to rejuvenate and get back to little projects at home. I need to clean out my garage, go through papers and books, and clean up the place. I would like to have a garage sale, if possible. We will see.

The other part of my mini vacation will be to get some books read that I have been putting off. I would also like to travel a bit. We will see how all of this goes. Right now, I am feeling a little blah. The NBA Finals are over. There's only baseball to watch, and I don't watch it much at all. This is the meh season for sports. I will find something to get into.