Just a total mess of a freewrite...for the first day of SI.

I've been thinking a lot about my classroom recently. I feel like there's a shift happening. Back to freewriting. I feel a little scattered, and a little unorganized. I feel unprepared, or is that just nervous. I have all of this knowledge, but am I ready to share it, to help others guide themselves to deeper research and meaning in their own work.

It makes me think of Senior Projects. (I think everything makes me think of Sr. Projects.) But on the night of the Senior Showcase, I think the kids must be feeling this nervousness that I feel. This knowledge of what's about to come, yet knowing there's the unexpected about to come as well. The unpredictability is what is scary and exciting all at the same time.

I'm not freewriting very well at all today. I feel preoccupied. It's the first day of SI in many locations and my twitter feed is going crazy. I'm going to have to turn off the tweetdeck so it doesn't pop up on my screen every 10 seconds. Thomas showed me how to do that the other day, but, of course, I totally forgot how. And I don't want to take the time right now to figure it out.

I'm sharing with my small writing group a piece on the traveling journal. I'm about to conduct research on it for the TEacher Inquiry Institute. I think EVERY teacher should go through the TII. It would be kind of neat if it were a class that all graduate students had to take, but, sometimes graduate students don't have to have teaching experience. I wonder if programs would be more authentic, more relevant, if they stuck to the prerequ that teaching experience is required, because that changes the whole context of research.

I've got butterflies in my stomach. Butterflies I say, but they are beautiful Monarchs. We are writing for a long time this morning. I'm glad for this. What if I don't have a "timed" writing in my classroom next year? Not starting out with the 7 minutes. Not having the clock running. Will that change the outcome of the freewriting?

And the freewriting begins...

It's the first day of the Summer Orientation. We are sitting in the new Collaboration Classroom at Missouri State. It's the first time I've heard this many fingers pecking the keyboards in the orientation. Normally, it's one or two with personal computers. I see four people handwriting and I wonder how this will affect freewriting by composing at the computer. Will people Fellows write, unhibited, like in the passage Keri read from Write to Learn? Will they write without assessment? Without heed to structure and content, but simply write, whether right or wrong.

Will they write without assessment?

I do not know if my student will ever write without assessment. Well, I know they will write, but they will write for feedback. It's hard, it's really hard, to think about not writing for the grade, and that's what I'm talking about when I talk assessment. My students hardly write for any audience but the teacher. I don't want to write about work...and I feel like that's where this is headed. I want to write about the first day of the Summer Institute and this orientation, and how in less than three months the 16 new faces in this room will be my friend, my colleague, and part of my professional learning community. And I think back to the past summers and all the teachers since the mid-1970's who have participated in a summer institute and who's classrooms have been changed because of it. I think about this network of people who make teaching professional. And here I go again--back to the loop of writing about work.

Priorities

We start classes in our new high school tomorrow. If I were on top of things, I could post a few pictures or add some audio or video to this post. But I'm not on top of things and I find myself being pretty low on the motivation scale when it comes to using technology in my work these days--not because I don't want to, but because it simply doesn't exist.

But, that's okay. The soda machines are full and the snack machines are stocked. We do have priorities at Republic High School.

Granny's Birthday

Today is Granny's birthday. When I mentioned this to my class this morning, they insisted we call to sing her "Happy Birthday." I thought what a great idea. So I grabbed my cell phone, dialed, and pushed the speaker button. After four rings she answered with a drowsy hello.

"HI, Granny!" I piped, as loud as I could into the phone.

"What." was her reply. And not "what?", which ends in a question mark and has the tone of curiousity regarding "what did you say?" but "What." as in a statement. A monotone, drab word that really said "why are you calling at such an ungodly hour and waking me up on my birthday!"

"Granny, I'm in my classroom and you're on speaker phone."

"You're kidding."
And then a giggle.

"No, granny, I'm not kidding. I told my class it's your birthday and they want to sing Happy Birthday to you."

And then she laughed again.

And Caleb and Luke led the chorus of the masses in the Happy Birthday song, even with the endearing "Dear Granny" in the middle.

"Well, thank you, thank you. Aren't you boys and girls good singers!?" she replied.

And then asked if we wanted her to give us some advice on living life? We said yes, but off the cuff, all she could think of was "keep up the good voices!"

I hope we do.

CRASH...

So I definitely need a new porch cover for the spring. :)

I'm not sure there's any fixing this one.