5pm is an early day.

my desk is a rainbow of temporary disorganization. i have much work to do when i get home, but as i look across my desk, which contains the following piles, all photocopied onto different colored paper, i'm laughing:
- "all about me" 1st drafts, 2nd drafts and zine pages
- my School Quality Review binder
- comic strips about the creative process
- progress reports
- collages
- late work in the "inbox"
- my attendance/grading grids
- a "comp check" graphic organizer
- a fake letter about my crazy class.

ryan is a genius. so we've been having a huge problem with this one class, and elizabeth was looking for a way to talk to them about primary source documents in history, so they drafted a fake letter to the principal from a staff member about this class and blocked parts of it out. the kids got all into it and were like "what? who's writing about us?" as she tried to get them to think about whether or not the source was reliable. brilliant! and what a creative way to deal with a rowdy class and also have them get into the concept/material. this is why i moved back to new york.

texting with my coworker, he keeps saying "this is going to be a good year." we've already chilled out as a staff a few different times, and we all feel the energy that we bring to the table. i'm exhausted, i pull myself up the hill from the train station to my house, drag myself up the stoop and usually plop myself into bed everyday. but i sigh the deepest sigh of contentment. i love what i do. now, that doesn't mean that i feel confident in what i do everyday, i am hella insecure right now, but i enjoy the struggle and the small triumphs... like getting "I" to school ON TIME today. i was shocked with my mouth hanging wide open. baby, baby, baby steps.

much love... bless you with the sounds from above...
lo

ayo, i'm tired of this lack of internet.

i have to back-blog about 9/11 real quick (more to come), i had an excellent anniversary of the event in my classroom. students whose lives hit up against that event with such close proximity that we all pushed back the chairs (and the lesson plans) just to talk, just to remember what it felt like. colleagues told me that the students were too young to remember, but i begged to differ, and though it was important that we talk. what if my class was the only time that day that they got to speak about it. it's much different to be teaching IN the city again, unlike last year, in the D, when students were more disconnected from it. ever since that day, I, in my second hour, has been glued to my class like glue. can't get him out of room 318.

yesterday i introduced them to zines. they freaked out at designing their own pages, or pimping their pages, as i called it. today, we're speedreading, doing a comprehension check with a sequence comic strip. creative assessment is my thaaaaang, girl. i keep gettin kids' phrases stuck in my head, this morning S told me "that quiz was O.D., miss" (translation "that quiz was awesome"). anyway, can i just brag about the fact that i got breakfast in bed today? i am a spoiled lady to have a man who will get up at 5:30 to make sure i have breakfast by 6am. more to come soon, just waiting for the internet to grace me at home.

so excited to begin the int'l poetry guild project with ICS. i've framed all of our technology projects into "tech thursdays", so we can have the time and space to get our work done. we have three online projects this term, and i'll have to tell you about them later because it's lunch time, and my ELL students come in for extra help. i love having lunch with my students. i need to make the first round of parent calls tonight, maybe Carlos will be my translator... most parents don't speak English and now is the time to really strengthen my Spanish speaking skills.

xo
lo

first few days of school.

here are some highlights and conclusions from the first and second days of school. it's been a whirlwind of a week so far. everyone keeps checking on how i'm doing and really, i'm easing through it one day at a time. this feels so natural, but there's still so much preparation that i must do on the daily. i've been sleeping a lot, when i'm not planning ahead. having no internet at home has also been a challenge, because i don't have access to the resources that i usually use for lesson planning. so much to do! but keep your ears open for an invite to our housewarming party -- after a month on anti-biotics, i feel the need to get a bit ridiculous.

highlights
* showing 7th period my scars and having B squeal
* having 6th period tell me that they prefer making animal sounds to raising their hands.
* having the kids say "we're going to EGYPT?" because they take everything literally and my metaphor of our class being a journey is being lost on them.
* in "Roses and Thorns" today, having "I" tell me that I look very professional.
* meeting Amelia and learning about the United Playaz' New Orleans trip from last year.
* S, who is cute as a button, explaining to the class why she likes KRS-One so much ("he made history because he talks real about things that matter to the community, who does that in rap nowadays?" Girl had my heart with that one.)
* my summer students rushing in to give me a hug yesterday morning, even if they didn't have me until 7th period.
* having them give me a "rose" for getting to write the rules of the class, instead of me writing them down.
* having t-skillz come up and say "we missed you, lauren." when i came to 4th period on friday after my dr. appt.


lessons learned
* you only ever get through 50% of your lesson plan, if you're lucky.
* never give them freetime (i did not learn this from experience, fortunately)
* do something different EVERYDAY.
* don't take "this is boring" personally.
* if T blurts something out that isn't harmful to anyone else, ignore him. reacting will only exacerbate the situation.
* there will be a fight in my classroom before the year is done. i'm glad the I team (our intervention team) is just down the hall.
* the attendance bubble sheets from the district are always wrong.
* Fridays, with half-days for students, are a blessing blessing blessing, even if disguised by department and grade-team meetings.
* you MUST rely on your colleagues to support you. going it alone = burning out quickly.
* your sub plans better include worksheets. though on my first half-day out, i got lucky enough to have a 17 year vet in my classroom.


with that, it's movie time. i'm in brookyn for the mini storm!
much love!
xo
lo

settling into 318

It is crazy to sit here on a Friday afternoon and feel like I'm at home. The culture and people at this school are phenomenal, and I know that I'll be working all year just to keep pace with their brilliance. I am not one to take the spotlight (with regard to accolades for my work), so it feels nice to be so outshined by 30 master teachers, seriously. regardless of their level of experience in the classroom, everyone at my school is truly committed to innovative techniques to get students learning. It works. In the poorest congressional district in the country, we have a graduation rate of 85% (33% is about average for the neighborhood) and students who truly seek out knowledge, are interested in educating themselves from a political as well as personal point of view. These students want to change the foundation of the world we live in, already.


Room 318 is amazing, though there's lots of cleaning to do, lots of organization and setting it up. I don't feel nearly ready for Tuesday, but unfortunately, I'd rather be in my room preparing than describing it right now... and our internet's being strange, so I'm going to let you go on this note: I'm trying to make my desks look like a boat for Tuesday, ha.

Hope all is well.
-Lo

notes on a syllabus.

perhaps the best thing i've seen online since this injury occurred. i'm always looking for ways to keep myself laughing. bert and ernie, doing M.O.P's "Ante Up".



last weekend, i went back to the hospital and was actually admitted for 3 days for an infection in the afore-blogged wound... as school begins (i report on monday), i'm trying to take care of my health first and lesson plans second. but here are some thoughts for my class this year that i'm synthesizing as i revise my syllabus. i'm teaching 5 sections of one class, which was originally titled "Intro to Literary Genres", but I re-titled "Reading into History".

***

1) this class is going to be a journey that we embark upon together. it is a science fiction cruise, back into history, where we will place ourselves in the sandals/chariots/saddles of different characters in literature, in order to see what lessons we can take from them that still apply to our lives today.

2) we will keep a travel log, where we will have daily entries about our surroundings, research we have come across, big questions we are beginning to ask ourselves as we cruise along, in a boat up the nile, the yangtze, the ganges, the mediterranean, the indian ocean and red sea (and that's only through december)!

3) monday thru thursday we will delve into literature and writing projects. fridays, we will close out the week with technology/blogging projects - trying to pause and reflect on where we're at, how far we've come and what we see ahead.

4) this classroom is a space that we are building together. it is not mine, it is ours. the rules of each class will be determined by a class contract, which we will decide upon and put in writing during the first week of school. while this contract can be a work in progress, we will decide together about the behaviors we would like to engage in within the class -- and how to deal with folks who are not respecting our space.

5) i welcome your prior knowledge about different periods of history and genres of literature, but ask that you always keep an open and questioning mind.

6) you will be expected to read, write and speak daily, as we are aiming to sharpen our communication skills. while i respect that people prefer different modes of communication, i also expect you to try new ways to express your ideas.

7) your grade will be determined by the effort you put in, your participation in class activities, the quality of your work and your own personal progress. you are in charge of your education and will also be evaluating your own work and progress, from time to time.

(after this i get into nitty gritty of grading structures and policies/procedures for absences, lateness (for both your person and your work),

***

and now a few words about the first month...

first two weeks -- basic skills: speedreading and reading strategies, notetaking, writing workshop (the writing process), discussion circle, goal setting, time management, class contracts, set-up of folders and journals, 'all about me' essays/visual projects, literary genre vocabulary, the art of the thesis, grammar basics.

next 3 weeks - egypt. "book of the dead" creation myths, KWL (what do we KNOW, what do we WONDER, what have we LEARNED?), translating hieroglyphs into poetry, vocabulary, rituals, "a modern ancient society" -- an oxymoron?, egyptian art (field trip to the met), spirituality, and economy. where do we see egypt in popular culture? what's the history of our fear of mummies? what else can we discover about their lives and culture?

***

and with that, i must go to bed. planning is exhilarating, but also exhausting. and i find it hilarious that anytime i describe my work this year, the adjective that folks usually use is "ambitious". is it? only time will tell.

xo
lo

technological difficulties, or murphy's law of publishing?

first of all, let me start off by saying that our zine turned out amazing. spectacular! truly, each student really took the project to heart, wrote something and created a page that represented who they are, what they're thinking about, and with such style! i am so proud of my summer students.

thrilled about how the project turned out, i had W, my assistant editor, help me put the last few touches on it, waited for pages from a few more students on wednesday and set off with A, my other assistant editor, to make photocopies... while the rest of the students went on a trip (to see batman, so sad that my leg prevented me from going). i had A print out and add the staff biographies, table of contents, etc while i started on the copying. about 100 pages into an 1,000 page copy project, the machine got a misfeed. being a copy machine aficionado, i pulled the machine apart and retrieve the jammed paper. it jammed again, on the next copy. and again, again, times 20. we spend the next hour trying to work on the machine, all 4 of us experienced office women who will roll up our sleeves to get a job done. our work goes unrewarded, and i apologize to the kind folks at the ASPIRA office who let me use their facilities. i feel horrible about jamming the machine!

J takes the master copy and adds some more photos to it, but we didn't get it copied in time for the last day of the summer program, which bummed me out. though, the students and staff will get to receive it in the mail in a week or two (or at school in the beginning of the year). i had especially wanted them to be able to autograph each other's zines, as they are all now published authors. i did get to stand up at the ceremony today and announce and congratulate them for their hard work. i agree with V, it will be cool for them to get them in the mail, to remind them of their summer just as it's starting to fade from their minds.

i think i will quote Langston Hughes all my life, in reference to students. if they think that our contact is going to be brief, they need to rethink it. once you have been in my classroom, you're stuck with me. our contact with not be constant, but i expect to hear about your successes, your struggles and your landmarks. i expressed this to them and got their contact info, if they're not going to be my students in the fall. we had a wonderful ceremony, a great BBQ that included teachers beating students in hoops, dance lessons by J and L, a battle between J and V and big ole dance circles. so many parents came up to say hello; it was really nice to be so welcomed into the community.

i will miss seeing these students in front of me everyday. but this experience had ignited my passion for teaching, and confirmed that this is what i'm meant to do. it feels amazing to have landmark moments to solidify this. thank you to everyone who helped support me in the program this summer. the pleasure was truly mine.

cheers,
lauren

mending and zinesterism

i am healing, but at jurassic pace. i tend to always think of "why things happen" and i'm convinced that i get injured about once a year so that i will slow down, and re-learn the lesson that sometimes i need help. i have always said that i need support and people to hold me up, but i am incredibly self-sufficient. it's so difficult for me to not have my full physical faculties, and to remember that when my body isn't healthy, much of my energy must be devoted to healing.

so, having divine inspiration at 1:00am to begin fleshing out the zine i'm working on with my students was unexpected. i have been working on my fall curriculum map for most of the day, and chatting with a few students about the papers they need to finish over the weekend. H was getting all metacognitive about why he can't write during class:




R was professing his love for poetry because he can "take out" his feelings.
i imagined him taking his feelings out of his pockets:



and L was just being sweet. she'd said that her class was a handful and i said that i didn't think so, that i enjoyed them:




I've found that myspace is an excellent way to connect, but setting up a time once or twice a week where I get on AIM during the evening/on the weekend, so that they can contact me about questions they have with their papers is the best way. They're always on AIM, and without me even reminding them, they'll say "Miss, I'm working on the paper." Just my presence outside of the classroom, digitally, causes them to recall assignments (Liz, I'm sure you've found this, too, with your cell phone research). It's not the be-all end-all solution to getting homework turned in, because it assumes that students have internet access and/or a computer at home, but another way to be in touch and get them to make that school-to-home transfer of knowledge. L actually IM'ed me this morning, talking about personal writing she was working on in addition to class work.

much more to say, but i'm exhausted. i feel that i've done a great deal of work today, which was much-needed. i still have to grade papers and get the layout for the zine done by monday, but i swear, i will turn them into lovers of the independent publishing world by the end of this week. having their own writing be in their hands in a little booklet is going to turn some, not all, into zinesters. at the very least, i hope that they use it as a yearbook, to remember each other by their work, as well as socially.

we'll see how it goes. i'll keep you updated. happy weekend!
xo
lo