February

The Social Side of things

"At the fabric store we are not Colored or Negros. We are not thieves or shameful or something to be hidden away. At the fabric store, we're just people"

- Brown Girl Dreaming, (p. 90-91)

Brown Girl Dreaming, Textbook, & Shortcut

This week when reading Brown Girl Dreaming, I found myself constantly using sticky notes and making notes about ideas her words sparked or simply taking note of the words she would say. This text has so many opportunities to inspire thoughts and dialogue! I even added to several pages in my own writer's notebook as I explore her words and intertwined them with my own thought or experiences. In particular, I was drawn to the narrative on pages 108-109 that was called, "Changes". Something about her words reminded me of my own life. Especially when she mentioned the activities and experiences she had in Greenville. She referenced these memories as that, memories as well as desires for the future. I can recall many times when I have had a meaningful experience or time in my life when I never wanted those circumstances to become memories that I could never come back to and experience again at a later date. "Now the evenings are quiet with my mother gone as though the night is listening to the way we are counting the days. (p.108)"

Although she is so young she also begins to recognize the truth of life and how it evolves and time has a way of changing what we know so well and hold so dear. It reminded me of the quote by C.S Lewis, “Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back everything is different?”.

A writing idea that could come from these pages of Brown Girl Dreaming:

When thinking about a precious moment from your own life. What made it precious? How did it make you feel or what did you feel? What made it change, did you experience that moment again? Did the moment change you?

Everything about what Jacquline Woods and Amy Krouse Rosenthal all have elements of "identity", implicitly and explicitly. There is so much writing that could come from each of these pages from,

  • What do you believe in? (Brown Girl Dreaming, p.49),
  • What did your parents always tell you/What do your parents believe in? (Brown Girl Dreaming, p.69)
  • Do you remember or have a secret with your siblings or friends? What did having that secret mean to you? (Shortcut)
  • The importance of hair or any favorite aspect of yourself (Textbook, p.104)
  • Unexpected beautiful moments you have or frequently encounter (Textbook, p.117)
  • Unexpected beautiful relationships (Textbook, p. 127)

These writing ideas stray from traditional writing ideas around "identity". They spark a multifaceted answer that needs explanation. The writing ideas is not what will make writer's but how the writer responds to such question or ideas. Additionally these types of writing ideas are unique to the individuals and each writer understand and appreciates that. These ideas hopefully, create a string of thought that could provoke the writer into writing even more.

Personal Writer's Notebook

Notable Entry for the Week

Mrs. Obama

This week I began reading Michelle Obama's "Becoming". I have been wanting to read it for years but have never bought it or when I try to find it at the library, it is ALWAYS checked out. This past Friday, I was at the public library and walked right by it on the shelf as I was looking for something else. My heart dropped and I snatched it up quickly. I immediately started reading it in the car, I was too excited! I used this book for inspiration for my something beautiful journal entry. A snippet of what I said was, "Something beautiful is a feeling you get when you see, hear or feel an emotion. M.O uses her words to describe her life and how her life was immediately unnormal (living in the white house) to normal (sitting at her new house in the backyard alone eating cheese toast ) hours later. She has always been a woman who has inspired me and I have never known the draw but I smile every time I see her in the news or see her doing something great. She is such a beautiful person and I am so eager to learn more about how she became who she is today."

Progress

This week, I had a harder time writing. I did the physical act of writing but was just struggling to get words on paper. I felt so confident about the work I did last week in my writer's notebook and can really see the pages begin to fill out, looking like a real writer's journal. This week, the pages seemed bland to me and just black and white. I know the writing process is a journey and I am trying to not let it discourage me!

I have slowly but surely am keeping up with my Instagram: What I love Challenge. Though I am not submitting photos everyday nor have I been keeping up with my schedule (I am at nine and I think I should be at least in the teens this week! oops!).

My writer's goal this week:

  1. To post everyday to instagram about the things I love (my goal is 100 by the end of the semester)
  2. Continue writing in my writer's notebook, but this week I want to collect three physical objects to tape in my journal and write about those objects.

Who is a Writer Anyways? You.

"I am a writer. Anything you say or do may be used in a story"

- Unknown.

Finding Writing Topics

Finding writing topics can be quite challenging, but the truth is - writing topics are endless! You just have to know how and where to conjure them. Helping students discover what to write about will be the biggest challenge that is faced when starting their writing journey.

So readers, how do I find my own writing topics? I have not been the most avid writer but have always wanted to. I never had any one model how to find writing topics - hence why I never continued the journey over the years. The only time that I was the most proud of my writing journey was when I was living in Spain and I had not much else to do but to write about my travels and my experiences. Something that helped me maintain my writing was that I had a list of writing ideas. I do have to admit - that the writing ideas that I found were from Pinterest but what made them better than any other writing prompts/ideas that I had ever found was that they were ambiguous.

"November Writing Prompts"

This is what I used. It was a daily writing lists. That had writing ideas that were not a yes or no answer but let the writer navigate how the discussion would go. Though, I would not use this directly in the classroom. It might be a great idea to have students have a list they could go when they were stuck for the day.


When this does not work - How are we going to move our students forward with their own writing journey?


What I have found since reading Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson and Textbook by Amy Krouse Rosenthal is that both author's writing are centered around who they are, what they have experienced, and the format does not have to be a traditional narrative. Using mentor texts to spark some sort of personal connection is what will trigger young or striving writer to become more passionate about writing.

Though it might be easier said than done, writer's need a model or something they can reflect back on when they are unsure and stuck. For me, I never remember having a positive writing model throughout school until I was a junior in High school (WOW). Everything I had every seen about journaling was in the movies or TV ("Dear Diary, Today... blah blah blah") how boring! The first couple of steps that are needed to accomplish any sort of writing is to show your students how to write. Do it passively, do it actively, do it in the cafeteria or maybe in the middle of a lesson. Show them that writing opportunities are everywhere, be overly enthusiastic until the habit is formed and they are able to see writing opportunities themselves.

In Mentor Text: Teaching Through Children's Literature, K-6, Chapter 3: What are you really writing about? Discovering the inside story. The authors do such a great job at using mentor texts as a bridge to the student's personal lives. This text offers many examples of how to do this. I especially like the Your Turn Lesson: The Inverted Triangle. The Inverted Triangle provides students to explore their own writing territories and then narrow their thought process to one thing. In my own notebook I created an exemplar of the Inverted Triangle. I was curious what kind of writing Topic I would conjure. This is what I got (and I did it twice; also sorry mine does not look like a triangle!)

How to Practice this with Students

  1. Ask students to think of larger ideas like family, traditions, weather, siblings, etc..
  2. Revisit these ideas often and add to it! Especially after reading stories or having experiences in and out of the classroom
  3. Narrow it down, a question I noticed myself asking was: What about Boone; then my mind went immediately to its weather.
  4. Turn and talk to partners about their topics, what happened once you turned and talk? Did any stories arise?
  5. Write it down, get that topic even narrower!
  6. Practice the Inverted Triangle everyday!

My Inverted Triangle

My Potential Writing Topics:

Boone, Spring of 2015 ; My Mom's ideas of Christmas Traditions

Furthering Your Writing

"Begin with something small and watch significance emerge."

- (Saunders et al 2014)

Six Word Memoir How-To

(Saunders et al 2014)

  1. Explain the process of six-word memoir to students
  2. Modal six-word memoirs using self-created examples or those found online
  3. Guide students through the writing process
  4. Help student connect their writing to art, image, or photographs
  5. Use technology to super impose memoirs onto art, images, or photographs
  6. Make students work public transforming the six word memoir into a some kind of public space (blog, presentation, social media)

Six Word Memoir Resources

My Six Word Memoir

by Tamela Queen

Personal Writer's Notebook

Notable Entry from the Week

Show Me, Don't Tell Me

This week, I was inspired by the "Show Me, Don't Tell Me" strategy. Over the course of the weekend, I took a look at several texts Wild Robot by and Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone by J.k. Rowling. In this text, I looked at how the author would describe the characters emotions and feeling. There were several great examples and I added them to my notebook! I created this flip card system with emotions listed on the front and examples on the back. This would be great to add to a students notebook! Student can easily access the information and add to it when they are anywhere!

Progress

Last week was rough but I was able to get right back on track. When writing in my own notebook this weekend, I gained a lot of worthy ideas from Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson and Textbook by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. I jotted a few ideas down and hope to come back to them later.

My writer's goal this week:

  1. To post at least 3 times this week to instagram about the things I love (my goal is 100 by the end of the semester)
  2. Write at least 3 entries based on ideas I gained from reading Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson and Textbook by Amy Krouse Rosenthal.

Six-Word Memoirs

Ever since last week, I have been collecting or creating new six-word memoirs. I have decided to start a separate page for the all the great and wonderful six-word memoirs I have found! It has also been fun creating memoirs too but I have come to realize six-words poses more of a challenge to me than seven. Enjoy!

References

Crews, D. (1992). Shortcut.

Dorfman, L,R., & Cappelli, R. (2017). What are you really writing about? Discovering the inside story. Mentor texts: teaching through children's literature, K-6 (2nd ed., pp. 21-50). Stenhouse Publishers. Print

Dorfman, L,R., & Cappelli, R. (2017). Writer's using magnifying lenses. Mentor texts: teaching through children's literature, K-6 (2nd ed., pp. 21-50). Stenhouse Publishers. Print

Gallagher, K. & Kittle, P. (2018). 180 Days: Two teachers and the quest to engage and empower adolescents. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Rosenthal, A.K. (2016). Textbook. Penguin Random House. Print

Saunders, J.M., Smith, E.E. (2014). Every word is on trial: six-word memoirs in the classroom. The Reading Teacher. 67(8) pp. 600–605.

Woodson, J. (2014). Brown girl dreaming.